Dozens of UCLA students boycotted and urged others to boycott Wal-Mart on Black Friday, calling for the corporation to pay its workers higher wages and give them better benefits.
In a social media campaign, students posted photos online holding signs that read “End corporate greed” and “People over profit,” among other messages, in Kerckhoff Hall last week.
Students who participated in the protest said they wanted to show solidarity with some Wal-Mart workers who participated in a strike on Black Friday, which is typically one of the year’s busiest days for retailers.
The protest is part of a national movement calling for Wal-Mart, which has been the focus of widespread criticism over the years, to pay its workers above the minimum wage. Erineo Garcia, a fourth-year political science and international development studies student, organized the protest at UCLA.
“(The corporation) is manipulating the system … to basically cheat workers out of fair wages and benefits they deserve,” said Negeen Sadeghi-Movahed, Undergraduate Students Association Council transfer student representative, who participated in the boycott.
In a statement on its website, Wal-Mart said fewer associates went on strike on Friday than on a typical day. The corporation said its full-time associates are paid $13 an hour on average and that it pays the minimum wage to fewer than 6,000 of its 1.3 million associates in the U.S.
The union-backed group Organization United for Respect at Wal-Mart, or OUR Wal-Mart, has held similar protests on Black Friday since 2012. The group told Reuters in mid-November that it planned to hold strikes on Black Friday at 1,600 Wal-Mart stories nationwide demanding a $15-per-hour wage and consistent working hours for employees.
At the United States Student Association’s annual meeting in August at UC Irvine, students rallied at Wal-Mart’s Orange County office to demand a better sick leave policy for Wal-Mart workers.
USAC External Vice President Conrad Contreras, who participated in the event, said his experience at the USSA rally encouraged him to support the boycott.
“We want equality in terms of working conditions,” Contreras said. He added that he thinks lower-level workers should receive the same benefits as company administrators.
Though the students who participated in the protest said they are aware that the corporation sells goods at a cheaper price, they said they think the low cost comes at the expense of workers.
“When things are priced at a lower cost, money is being made up somewhere,” Sadeghi-Movahed said.
The corporation also said in the statement that it does not think the protesters are representative of its workers.
“The crowds are mostly made up of paid union demonstrators,” said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Brooke Buchanan in the statement.
As of now, students involved in the boycott said they do not plan on taking any further action against the corporation.