Walmart workers are some of our country’s most vulnerable workers. Many of them are literally just a paycheck or two away from homelessness. Most already qualify for food assistance and Medicaid. With over 2 million employees and a large percentage of them having to rely on public assistance despite working, Walmart has managed to become the recipient of a huge transfer of public wealth (tax dollars) into private hands. Don’t be fooled, Walmart isn’t keeping wages low in order to keep costs to customers down -- it keeps wages and hours down in order to keep their personal profits obscenely and artificially high. Every dollar the public spends on providing Walmart employees with enough food stamps to make it through the month - and every dollar we spend on making sure their families get the healthcare that they deserve is a dollar that Walmart, Inc. gets to pocket in profit. You know what they say “a penny saved is a penny earned.” While I definitely support food and healthcare assistance everywhere it’s needed, I know that Walmart could afford to provide for its employees if it wasn’t so greedy. In fact just 6 of the Walton family’s richest members have a combined wealth that is greater than the bottom 30 percent of American earners combined.

Having been inspired by the brave Illinois Walmart warehouse workers, there are now close to 30 Walmarts around the country with workers out on strike and I want them to hear us say ‘we hear you and now WE’RE going to do something about it!” Instead of waiting and rallying for these frightened and vulnerable workers to walk off their jobs and risk so much, we, the Walmart shoppers are stepping up and taking a pledge to pro-actively support the striking, and not-yet-striking but long-suffering Walmart workers by refusing to purchase anything from Walmart, effective on the largest shopping day of the year (so-called black Friday) and continuing throughout the holiday season should Walmart fail to make the changes that workers are demanding and deserve, including: living wages, the opportunity to work full-time, an end to illegal retaliation against employees that dare discuss forming a union, improvement of their working conditions, and more.

Walmart has been able to get away with their illegal union-busting and intimidation for so many years by banking (literally) on the fears of their employees. We are going to take the fear factor and turn tables on Walmart.

By signing this petition I hereby pledge to refuse to purchase any product from Walmart effective on black Friday should they fail to do what’s right and provide a living to those who work for one, their associates.