Walmart Workers Begin 15-Day Fast Wage Protest
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A 15-day fast has begun by about a thousand Walmart workers nationwide. They are calling attention to the need for a $15 minimum wage at the nation's largest grocery supplier.
OUR Walmart is a worker led organization which kicked off the fast this week. Executive director Andrea Dehlendorf says many Walmart workers struggle to survive and in many cases, depend on food stamps to do that.
"We know without full-time hours, and without getting to $15 an hour, it is not fundamentally dealing with the fact that workers do not have enough money to make ends meet," she says, "and to feed themselves and their families."
This is part of the groups "$15 and Full-Time" campaign to draw attention to working conditions at Walmart. Walmart says its workers make $9 an hour. The corporation says it will continue to focus on increased wages, education and training for its associates.
Filmmaker Robert Greenwald made a movie about Walmart, and says this is a tale of profound inequality between the Walton family and the workers of Walmart.
"Members of the Walton family, billionaires, multi-billionaires, who never worked one day in their life at Walmart for that money," Greenwald says, "and yet you hear these stories of people who have to share their lunches and scrounge for food."
There are about two dozen Walmart stores across the Philadelphia region.
The fast will end on Black Friday.