The importance of Black Friday is starting to extend beyond the shopping frenzy of the customers and into the long-standing plight of workers in the United States.
For the third straight year, OUR Walmart, a group of workers for the retail giant that is supported by the United Food and Commercial Workers, is looking to stage several strikes across the country.
The group will be in protest against supposed bad working conditions at Walmart, which is the largest retailer in the United States with about 1,600 outlets.
A report by BBC reveals Barbara Getz as one of the Walmart workers that will be taking part in the protests.
Getz earns $12.40 an hour as an overnight stocker in Walmart's Aurora, Colorado branch. She has been working at the retail giant for six years, but says that she has been struggling to receive a response from Walmart management for concerns that she has raised regarding schedules and promotions.
"We reach out to Wal-Mart every day of the year and we ask them to correct their business practices and they ignore us," Gertz said.
"Being that Black Friday is the most important shopping day of the year, we felt maybe we could make an impact on that day and they would listen to us."
However, Brooke Buchanan, a spokesperson for Walmart, said that the company implements an open door policy that allows all employees to freely share their concerns and ask questions.
"Unfortunately the labor unions, who do not represent the 1.3 million associates that work at Wal-Mart in the US, use the holiday season to support their agenda," Buchanan said.
According to Walmart, most of the protesters will be union workers or supporters, as they continue to try to unionize the employees of Walmart.
The OUR Walmart group, however, is different from the traditional groups that only push for unionization. As an "alt-labor" group, OUR Walmart will be taking the new approach of focusing on carrying out strikes and demonstrations to place pressure on companies to modify existing practices.
The strikes will call for better working hours and wages of $15 per hour, and so far, formal strike notices have been presented by the group in at least six states, with many more coming.
The strikes are not expected to cause any disruptions to the operations of Walmart, as in previous years, the demonstrations did not look to interrupt the shoppers or Walmart employees that choose to come to work on Black Friday.
