Union backers stage flash mob at Brier Creek Wal-Mart

On Sept. 5 in cities across the country, members of the Organization United for Respect (OUR) at Wal-Mart, a division of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, helped organize and stage protests at Wal-Mart stores across the country – which included a step-dancing flash-mob style performance from UFCW local 1208’s Step Team at the Brier Creek Wal-Mart.

Sarah Baker, an intern with OUR Wal-Mart who works on the campaign as an organizer, was among those in attendance.

“[Thursday] was part of nationwide actions across the country to put pressure on Wal-Mart to rehire workers they illegally fired,” she said, “and also to put pressure on Wal-Mart to commit to publicly paying their workers a decent wage.”

Baker explained that in 2011, the association delivered a “declaration of respect” to the Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., which stated that workers be paid a minimum of $13 per hour.

The Step Team, she said, was composed of employees from the Smithfield pork processing plant in Tar Heel who are members of UFCW local 1208. The only current Wal-Mart employee who participated in the Brier Creek protest, she said, was an associate from a store in Elizabeth City, Cheryl Plowe.