her and thank you first of all for the invitation to come and speak i think just looking at the agenda and the itinerary that you have for the next month that's very impressive so excited to be here to speak with you i'm cord nadir of making change at walmart puget sound coalition and the coalition really i'm also a community organizer for us c w local twenty one we represent the grocery workers and i agree it's a huge relief that we didn't have to strike but our members were ready to and the reason that they were ready to is because they had so many customers coming in and telling them that you were behind them one hundred percent and that gave them the courage to carry through and to get a good contract so we're very excited about that but as part of my work as well the making change at walmart it's a campaign that's been going for about two years now is that the latest iteration of past campaigns highlighting the way that wal mart operates before it was a wake up wal mart and the high high price  high cost of low prices is a movie that came out right around the time that wake up wal mart was was really highlighting the way that wal mart impacts workers lives and all of our lives frankly and so the making change at wal mart puget sound coalition is a coalition of over two dozen organizations locally of faith organizations small business food justice women's rights immigrant rights organizations all coming together recognizing that in order to rebuild our country in order to rebuild our middle class we really do have to tackle wal mart and so where we're in this together and why wal mart how many of you are somewhat familiar with with wal mart and how they operate and if we've done our job well lots of hands so there's a title that i had on the first page was change wal mart change or world and partly that's because that's that's gerri's phrase that he uses a lot gerry is going to come up and talk to you soon he he says if we can change wal mart we can change the world and it's not really that much of an exaggeration there's a lot of truth to it because wal mart is the world's largest employer there's about one point four million workers in the united states that work directly for wal mart and of over two million worldwide that are employees of wal mart that doesn't include all of the workers who work through wal mart supply chain the ones that make the clothing that wal mart buys the ones that work in the seafood plants where wal mart sources their seafood the ones that work in the warehouses that move exclusively wal mart product so just the workers who work on the retail and it's over two million worldwide and one point four million in the u s the world's largest employer and the largest employer in the u s and so wal mart really the way that they operate impacts all of us they impacts those workers directly and that impacts their families and impacts their communities and beyond just the sheer millions of workers that are impacted by wal mart also the amount of wealth that has been amassed by six heirs the six children of sam walton who who founded wal mart are the world's i think the world's richest family certainly the richest in the country and they have amassed wealth that is the is equal to the bottom forty two percent of all american families the bottom forty two percent of all american families have wealth equal to these six kids although they're adults now but they still refer to them as kids that's forty nine million families so with all of that wealth comes a lot of influence because believe me they use their money to ensure that they build that wealth and continue on this path so that the walmart's ruling family the waltons their wealth is actually doubled since two thousand and seven and in fact just last month there forbes list of the four hundred richest americans and the six walton's were shown to have increased their net worth by twenty five percent in just the last six months so that if you can't remember how many million it is twenty nine billion since march is what their wealth has increased by and in just the last six months and they're worth about one hundred and forty five billion dollars those those six individuals and this is while the vast majority of wal mart workers make less than twenty five thousand a year and when you look at all that wealth it's it's certainly not trickling down wal mart is the largest user of government assistance in the state of washington and they're the number one user of d s h us medical in washington state they have been consistently since the state has tracked that information that means that their employees through no fault of their own these are workers who are working full time sometimes are forced onto basic health they're killed or in are forced on to government provided medical because they can't get it through wal mart they are heavy users of food stamps as well as it's referred to now and now that the affordable has been implemented i'm sure you're not surprised to guess that wal mart more and more workers are being given fewer than thirty hours a week so that they they don't even get health care through wal mart at all anymore many don't and so wal mart is we are subsidizing wal mart's business model is america's richest family and we're still paying to provide food and health care to their to their employees and they also have a very strategic vested of avoiding property taxes they regularly challenge taxes all across the country and they find ways to shelter themselves from paying taxes and so they're not satisfied with just having their employees you know on public programs but they're also trying to avoid taxes at any cost and when moves in and for every three jobs they create two jobs are lost or excuse me for every two jobs they create three jobs are lost and the reason is is because when wal mart moves in they very intentionally undercut the competition sometimes mom and pop shops they will undercut them they'll find ways to you know provide goods at lower lower cost they can take a loss this is the largest corporation right the richest corporation in the country they can operate at a loss long enough to drive other businesses out and then the prices will bounce back but many many businesses shut within like a mile two miles of wal mart when they open and wal mart's influence on jobs the poverty wages and we were to talk about that that the overseas manufacturing while mart uses our trade trade agreements which if you're familiar with nafta trans pacific partnership is the latest agreement that is folks are trying to get passed that would continue wal mart's ability to be able to scour the world for the cheapest good at the lowest price that often means that these goods are made under unsafe working conditions and that workers are being paid well and so overseas manufacturing the workers suffers well and wal mart standard is so low that hundreds of thousands of its workers live in poverty even the ones that are working full time and in fact the sweatshops they don't just exist overseas you know you hear about the sweat shops the garment factories in bangladesh you hear about the sweat shops in vietnam but we actually had a case in new orleans where a seafood seafood  plant was found to the workers very courageously these were largely mexican immigrant workers in new orleans very courageously went on strike and refused to work and they claimed that they were being forced to work that they were being locked locked into the plant and threatened physically threatened by by management and there was an investigation in the investigation verified that in fact that was true there was forced labor happening in our own country in new orleans and the workers were brave enough to stand up and fight it thank goodness that supplier went out of business they were forced to pay fines and restitution to the workers and the workers were given visas in as protection to them because they stood up and fought this and that wal mart was the largest customer of that seafood plant so that just kind of gives you an indication that this isn't just a problem abroad in terms of sweatshops and so very you know i think that one thing about our campaign is we've been pounding away at wal mart for a long time and there are workers that are very courageously standing up and talking about the way wal mart operates and though we know that we're effective because wal mart is responding they're defending themselves and just recently they said very publicly that well we have this many you know hundreds of thousands of workers that are making over twenty five thousand a year so these are good jobs we provide good jobs what they didn't expect is that we can do the math i think they said that something like four hundred seventy five thousand workers make over twenty five thousand but they have one point two million workers in the united states so what does that tell you so we we countered we said well that means that two thirds of your employees in the united states over eight hundred thousand make less than twenty five thousand a year and wal mart was a bit flustered by that and then they responded they're like oh no no some of those are in our management so really it's it's only over half of our our employees make less than twenty five thousand a year  either way it's unacceptable it's unacceptable that our richest corporation is operating in this way and and luckily we have some very brave workers that are doing something about it so there are several campaigns that have risen up to respond to wal mart because of the realization again that it impacts all of us it impacts our communities it impacts workers and it impacts the entire retail industry i was talking to you about our grocery workers locally who were within an hour and a half of twenty two thousand workers having to go on strike and go without pay to just fight to maintain the union standards that they have in their jobs and the bargaining committee at the table when they would the employers these union corporations told them why they were demanding cuts in wages why they were demanding cuts in health care benefits and they said it's because we have to compete with companies like wal mart and so you need to take the cuts because we have to compete with wal mart and think goodness our workers stood strong the community stood strong we said no we're not going that direction we're not going to chase wal mart to the bottom and we succeeded in protecting improving wages and protecting all of our benefits and our pension but it was a fight and the reason we have to go through this fight every three years is because wal mart is operating this way with no restrictions well at least before they had no restriction now we do so a very exciting development as we have wal mart workers who are standing up and organizing they're not organizing into a union it's a workers association called our walmart organization united for respect at wal mart and they are standing up and saying you know what we don't have a union but that doesn't that doesn't mean we can't act like a union it doesn't mean that we can't act together collectively to improve our working conditions so workers are standing up in our wal mart to make a difference i told talk to you about making change at walmart which is the campaign run by us t w the grocery workers union and the coalition in many cities across the country including seattle we have warehouse workers united to stand up for the warehouse workers who operate again in warehouses that exclusively move wal mart products they might as well be wal mart warehouses but they're run by a third party so wal mart can have that that layer of legal protection for the for the way the workers are treated we have the international alliance the uni america's alliance of wal mart workers and unions across or all around the world who are coordinating together to demand that wal mart do better it may surprise you that wal mart is unionized in many places around the world in brazil and several other countries they are forced to be union and so they do and that demonstrates that wal mart will they will comply with that was my alarm and wal mart will comply with with labor law and demands that workers be allowed a collective voice when they have to and unfortunately in this country they just don't have to so they don't but luckily we've got brothers and sisters around the world that are joining with us to put pressure on wal mart where they are union and where they aren't union and then we have the wal mart one percent campaign which continues to highlight the walton family the walton heirs and to demand that they do better and so some of the things we do is we do stand by our brothers and sisters around the world like the bangladeshi garment workers and i'm sure you've heard about the fires and  disasters in factories in bangladesh where workers basically go to work not knowing if they're going to come home to their their their families and many have not thousands have not and in just gosh the last year we've had three disasters we have the factory fire just around black friday weekend last year over one hundred workers were were locked into a factory for some point of time and many of skate and many did not over one hundred garment workers mostly young women died in that fire in bangladesh and and calpol an actor she's a union organizer in bangladesh she's a courageous organizer she came to talk about that disaster and she brought with her sumi obviating who was a garment worker in that factory in the factory when it caught fire and she jumped out of a window in and surprise d survived to her own surprise actually she didn't expect to survive she jumped out of third floor fourth floor window because she wanted her parents to have her body she had seen other situations where workers died in fires and their bodies were never recovered and so she jumped out of the factory to make sure that her family could have that closure and she managed to survive so she was here and while they were here we got news of the factory collapse where over a thousand workers were crushed to death again a factory where wal mart was one of the largest customers and then just this month another fire eight workers died many more critically injured again wal mart is the largest customer of these factories and as a result of these tragedies something good has come of it that there's finally a pact that is gaining ground and corporations are signing on agreeing to pay for the improvements necessary to get these factories up to standard but wal mart still refuses to sign on even though these three disasters they are the largest or one of the largest customers so wal mart still isn't doing the right thing by the workers and we will continue to stand by them until they do and the wal mart our walmart organization united for respect at wal mart this is the workers association just two years old is growing  throughout the country they hands represent where the workers are organizing including in this area and this is a picture of our local team i don't know when i think this might have been taken like two years ago when they first for and there continue to be really amazing amazing courageous leaders that are coming out of our local stores and some of the things they do is they demand safety in the stores this is actually a jerry store federal way super  center there were many safety hazards that were identified by workers and they were taken to management time and time again in the repairs were not made and finally they came together they signed a petition laying out what the safety hazards were and why they had to be fixed and they went along with community along with people like you and me to deliver the petition to the store manager she said she's not the store manager but she was the manager on duty and  even though despite months of raising these issues these safety issues they were not repaired when that petition was delivered that very night one of the most egregious safety hazards was repaired immediately and so that demonstrates the effectiveness of workers standing together and so the there was a pallet that was carrying tons and tons of product and it was off its base and if that had slipped with a worker underneath they would have been killed and that night it was fixed and there are still other issues that haven't been repaired but that demonstrates the power of the workers and so jerry is one of our strongest leaders and he has stood strong and out despite you know wal mart's record of retaliation and and he's he's never stopped despite everything and they did ultimately fire him he went on strike earlier this year and when he came back within about three days jerry was suspended for some bogus reason and ultimately fired wal mart has refused to hire him back we still demand that he get his job back retaliation is unacceptable and we have made that clear and we're going to continue to fight for jerry but he continues to fight fight for his coworkers he hasn't stopped for a second and you're going to hear from him and jerry luckily doesn't have to do it alone where with him this is a picture of some of the community supporters faith allies human rights allies people just regular people like you and me who are standing with the workers and we're going to make sure that the workers aren't alone and that we all do this together one thing you can do we'll talk about this a little bit later but the workers are going on strike in response to the retaliation and in response to jerry's firing in response to discipline that's that's been taken against other workers who have stood up around unsafe and unfair working conditions and so the workers are going on strike on november twelfth and we're going to be with them and you're invited to join us there flyers on the back so that you can take them  and give them to your friends and family as well here's some information now i'm going to ask jerry to come up and tell you his story scene and that's why i'm quit to my bartending because i don't like you know i see people drinking in a bar and i quit and i thing god she have a plan for me to work to wal mart because i want to see about wal mart management and how do we how we treat the workers and up to two thousand and six and first day i worked inside a store but i working hard and if i start to clock in and i start you know war and i stop it at break time and two thousand two thousand and seven and i'm ok i moved here skip going lying to me and he said jerry's don't worry about that i'm porter and i ordering but i'm waiting for one years one might say don't order and and dismay strategy and because i'll work over night and i encourage to my coworkers for like you know sign sign for about the safety about safety and my coworker sinai thing almost thirty my coworker he working hard the more you give you over low and i'm not i'm not i'm not like a complained because you know it's i can do anything about that because the money is every night he's harassing me to watch my job place and jerry she don't allow to you told me that you don't allow to do signing here you know allowed to unionize in here organization because and every night it's like i feel like i feel like i'm sick because one much give me an overload every night and like a thirty open door to my store for about the safety i do to stop that and i told myself my store minded if you guys you don't do it right i don't stop get going inside your office and is very sad that's why i'm here and i think you're going to hear my story and all over the place it's very said and i'm very emotion that because it's you know if it's if i think about only myself i don't do it i don't do that you know i assume a human being i don't i don't do it that to my coworkers and you know wal mart and its longtime you targeting me and and he fired me for no reason and now as i'm looking for a job and and my family suffer for dos that's why i need you guys help i think it is very important to to write the scumming a block friday so that's powerful thank you very very is like i said he is he isn't skip to be he hasn't stopped he's a fierce fierce advocate for his coworkers for his family for all of us and he's not alone workers across the country are standing up some are suffering retaliation others aren't some workers who never stand up for themselves get fired for no good reason not just the leaders that wal mart can change we've shown that they can change i showed you the example of the workers demanding a safety safety improvements in the store and getting some results wal mart is responding to public pressure they're losing money they're not there so their stores are not profitable year after year and part of that is because of the understaffing they're not keeping their shelves full they're getting a lot of credit criticism for that for not staffing adequately empty shelves unhappy customers non profitable stores and but it's not about the money this is about the workers and jerry is right this is about human beings and and our obligation to each other so i think at this point if there's any clarifying questions you have we can do that real quick or we can break into your discussion groups which you normally while the walton family a lot of the wealth that they amass is through their stock and so oftentimes i'm sure you've seen with like facebook and and other companies they manage to get rich even if  their companies aren't profitable it's not that wal mart isn't profitable worldwide so the same store sales is one statistic just to see how their stores are profitable they take one store and say year after year is it growing is it is it becoming is our sales increasing and in the last two or three quarters they've had same store sales losses so they're the stores that are open for more than a year year after year are losing money but what wal mart does very well as they build new stores so if you can't make money in the stores that you have you build more stores you put other competitors out of business and then you have more stores and wal mart has pledged to continue to build more stores especially in urban urban cities like seattle they're very determined to build more stores and we certainly are opposing that until wal mart does right by their workers can you come up  think injuries not alone there are a lot of leaders in our walmart who are very clear they love their jobs they love their coworkers they love their customers they just want wal mart to be the best that it can be they want wal mart to but one thing that jerry did do is he did file a formal complaint because of the retaliation he was suffering because he was raising safety issues he won that and wal mart as a result was forced to put a little sign up in the break room saying we're sorry you actually have the right to do these various things and we won't interfere with your rights again so so jerry did win a suit against them and it is no monetary damages of course but and it's i mean that's why you know i decided to go into school for colin ari because you know it's like i have a i have a kids and i have a family well there was the largest class action suit filed in the history of the united states against wal mart for gender discrimination and then the supreme court famously blew that out of the water by saying that you can't file a class action lawsuit it was basically a big too big too big to sue argument that if you're that big all of the women have to demonstrate that they were discriminated against in a similar way or that so basically what the supreme court did was limit the possibility of large scale lawsuits class action lawsuits like this in the future what's been happening since then is that the class has broken up into like states and different states are now suing for gender discrimination to demonstrate that yes these women are in a class together because they're impacted by the same management team or it's it's complicated but basically they didn't say that there were not merits to the suit they just said that wal mart's too big to sue in that manner and so  can and getting getting retaliation and clearly unlawful behavior dealt with but if you're familiar at all with labor law in this country i think you would be shocked at how much corporations can get away with and really not suffer any any consequences and if they do if there are consequences they come ten years down the road or longer and it's  basically a slap on the wrist if that for corporations and so we do have our wal mart does have a legal team and they do pursue that but really what this is about is this is about people power and really the that wal mart is going to change isn't by suing them they have teams and teams of high paid lawyers that are going to countersue and argue everything imaginable you know and when they do end up having to pay they will pay but it's it's in consequential for them and so really this is about the power of people the power of community to stand up and demand that wal mart do better wal mart isn't going to change because we sue them they're going to change because their workers force them to change and because communities in which they operate demand that they change and so but i do i definitely understand where you're coming from and when you see an injustice like this it's hard not to say just go after them just sue them and there those options are being pursued but labor law in this country is not what it's cracked up to be one more question and then i think we'll go to the small group conversation yes which i like the woman in purple and that's a good point i'll let jerry speak to this show a little also but you know it's been a lot of people you know what a lot of people out of a lot of is a consumer boycott our walmart is really about supporting the workers and organizing the workers and making change at walmart is about educating community and educating consumers and customers are going to make make their own decisions right we're not about speaking to the behavior of customers were about speaking to wal mart's behavior and there are some workers wal mart management is very good at demonizing those of us who are supporting workers and they will they have meetings with workers and say look you know they want you to lose your job they want you to lose hours they're saying people don't shop in your stores that means you're not going to get your hours you're not going to get you know the paycheck that you need to feed your family so wal mart management is very good at spinning things and making us seem like where we're the enemy and we we don't want to feed into that and we also are really focused on wal mart behavior consumers are going to make the choices they're going to make some customers are going to continue to shop if they continue to shop we asked them while they're shopping to let the workers know that they're supporting them and that they stand by them the workers who choose not to shop that's fine too that's their decision the consumers who choose not to shop at wal mart we ask that you continue to support the workers through the protest boys went to visit his father around here move to an upscale neighborhood the graveyard where where general robert ross is buried and it's an important site there and in halifax and then i was i was visiting  writing lots of songs on that subject and in that vein people in the town council and russ trevor where he lives had asked him if you would write a song about general robert ross because he was from russ trevor and russ trevor in fact was named after the ross family because they were rich and indeed were you know they were given well they were given land there by the british who didn't own the land to give it to them but it's a favorite thing of the british empire to do and so there's this phallic monument to general robert ross there in the town and and tommy gave it quite a bit of thought thinking about you know how he might possibly write a song about general robert ross and he just you know just couldn't really get his head around how to approach that particular subject and but but knowing personally about the most well known single accomplishment of general robert ross i thought you know despite the fact that this is a you know wealthy loyalist you know i think i just got to write a song about him  and he brought down the congress and the supreme court on the same day so it was a very good year for the construction industry and he ate the president's breakfast before burning down the white house which i think is  it was an eight hundred fourteen and the president was james madison