In its never-ending quest for yet more profits at the cost of workers and their communities, giant retailer Walmart last week announced it was cutting more than 10,000 jobs atits Sam’s Club chain in the U.S., replacing them with outsourced workers hired for “Shopper Events.”

Showing true compassion, Walmart management held mass meetings to terminate the workers, offering them boxes of tissues in case the news they were losing their jobs proved upsetting.
 

According to U.S. watchdog Wake Up Walmart, it appears Walmart targeted older and more senior workers for the layoff without consideration of past service. “Why hasn’t Walmart made a clearer path to employment with the outsourced company, which they clearly have the power to do?” Wake Up Walmart asked in a statement Jan. 25. “Why is Walmart telling workers they must agree not to pursue age discrimination claims in order to qualify for severance pay?”

In Canada, meanwhile, the Walmart Workers Canada Free Speech campaign will have at least another 33 weeks to keep building support and poking fun at the world’s biggest baby, Walmart, and its over-the-top injunction request against the six-year-old, award-winning www.walmartworkerscanada.ca website, which is dedicated to helping associates know and exercise their rights.

The world’s largest corporation will have four days in the fall – Sept. 7, 8, 10, and 13 – to try to convince the Quebec Superior Court to force walmartworkerscanada.ca to change everything Walmart doesn’t like about the website – including the use of circles, the colour blue, and the words “dignity”and “respect.”

Until then, the UFCW Canada National Office – which runs the site – says, the www.walmartworkerscanada.ca/freespeech campaign will keep doing everything it can to protect open communication on the internet, and mobilize UFCW Canada activists and their friends. Stay tuned!