Workers Strike at Wal-Mart’s Mexico Stores

Wal-Mart employees at the company’s stores in Mexico went on strike yesterday, demanding better treatment from managers and better pay. Wal-Mart came under fire recently for refusing to pay teenagers working in its Mexico stores. The current labor dispute is not related.

Wal-Mart’s Mexico employees are not the only ones to strike in recent weeks. Wal-Mart employees in China held a sit-in at a distribution center, demanding back pay from the multinational retailer. Wal-Mart employees in China are increasingly unionized, but employees in Mexico are not. Wal-Mart employees in the U.S. could just as easily demand better conditions and pay.

Workers strike at three units of Mexico’s Walmex [Reuters]

Wal-Mart de Mexico, the country’s biggest retailer, suffered its first-ever strike this week when 300 workers from two stores and a restaurant walked out for a day in a dispute over pay and conditions.

Jaime Camacho, a top official from a grass-roots workers movement that backed the strike action, told Reuters that black and red strike flags were hung at the entrance of the stores and restaurant in the beach resort of Los Cabos at midday on Wednesday, closing down the establishments.

“We lifted the flags today at 9 a.m. local time (1700 GMT). The strike has ended,” Camacho said on Thursday. The units affected were a Wal-Mart Supercenter, a Sam’s membership store and a Vips restaurant, he said.

Walmex was not immediately available for comment.

Walmex employs over 150,000 people across Mexico and is considered the country’s biggest private sector employer. Workers are not unionized.

Workers at the Los Cabos stores and restaurant held their strike action with the backing of Mexico’s Revolutionary Confederation of Workers and Peasants, or CROC, a union-style organization that defends workers’ rights.

Camacho said the Walmex workers had complained about bad treatment from managers and that they were not being paid overtime or given benefit packages similar to those awarded by other Walmex stores in the country.

The company agreed to grant some of the workers’ demands and signed a new labor contract on Thursday, Camacho said.

Media reported that in December of last year, protesters picketed outside a Walmex story in the Mexican capital to show support for employees who tried to form a union.

Walmex and its parent, giant U.S. retailer Wal-Mart Stores Inc, are often accused of paying low salaries and of being hostile to unionization efforts.

Posted by Alex Goldschmidt on Friday, February 08, 2008

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