Spencer Woodman: Can Walmart Be Unionized?

Spencer Woodman: Can Walmart Be Unionized?

Spencer Woodman: Can Walmart Be Unionized?

Faced with the retail giant’s continued suppression and intimidation, Walmart workers have found untraditional ways to unionize.

Copy Link
Facebook
X (Twitter)
Bluesky
Pocket
Email

Faced with the retail giant’s continued suppression and intimidation, Walmart workers have found untraditional ways to unionize.

Walmart has a long track record of suppressing efforts to unionize its employees. But over the past year, Walmart workers have tried a new method of organizing in informal groups that are not union-certified but still function as instruments for workers to negotiate with management and assert their rights. In this episode of Nation Conversations, Spencer Woodman sits down with Executive Editor Betsy Reed to explain how this campaign, known as OUR Walmart, has succeeded where others have failed and the implications of such campaigns for the retailer and its employees.

For more on Walmart workers’ new unionization campaigns, read Spencer Woodman’s article “Labor Takes Aim at Walmart—Again,” which appears in the January 23, 2012 issue of The Nation magazine.

Subscribe to Nation Conversations on iTunes for exclusive audio of Nation editors and writers digging into the topics and issues that shape the magazine. Check back for a new episode each Thursday.

Jin Zhao

Support The Nation’s June Fundraising Campaign

With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.

As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.

The Nation elevates progressive ideas, movements, and elected officials achieving real change across the country into the national conversation. At the same time, our journalists are exposing how crypto and AI-funded super PACs are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to knock out candidates they oppose, reporting on the devastating impact of the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, and sounding the alarm on attempts by red states to quickly redraw electoral maps, disenfranchising Southern Black voters.

We can play this critical role because of support from readers like you. This June, we’re raising $20,000 to power The Nation’s independent journalism in the run-up to November’s immensely consequential elections.

It’s in our power to build a more just society, and your support at this critical moment brings us closer to that bold vision. I hope you’ll donate today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation

Ad Policy
x