With Black Friday a week away workers at American retail giant Walmart began walking off the job with three unions backing employees and urging them to protest the company this according to FOX News.
Walmart is America's largest employer and in recent times has found itself battling employees over better pay, fairer schedules and more affordable health care.
The company has seen its employees striking in order to seek better working conditions, FOX News reported that strikes at stores in Dallas and Richmond, California with strikes and protests expected at stores in Chicago, Miami, Milwaukee and Washington D.C.
Walmart employee Charlene Fletcher and her husband both work at a store in Duarte, California and she said that she was furious when she found out that she and her spouse had to work on Thanksgiving making it impossible to spend the holiday with their young children.
"It's heartbreaking to miss the holiday with them, and it's just one more way that Walmart is showing its disregard for our families," Fletcher said in a statement. "But when our co-workers speak out about problems like these, Walmart turns their schedules upside down, cuts their hours and even fires people. We're going on strike for an end to Walmart's attempts to silence its workers."
Making Change at Walmart, OUR Walmart and Corporate Action Network are the trio that are heavily involved in employee's fight against Walmart and claim that the company uses retaliatory tactics against employees.
FOX News received a statement from Walmart spokesman Dan Fogelman called this movement "another exaggerated publicity campaign aimed at generating headlines to mislead" customers and employees.
"We have a great group of associates at Walmart," the statement read. "We'll have more than one million associates working throughout the holiday weekend and they're excited about our Black Friday plans this year. This is the Super Bowl for retailers and we're ready.
"We've been working on our Black Friday plans for almost a year now and we're prepared to have a great event. Our associates care about providing a great customer experience on Black Friday and we're confident that's what customers will have at Walmart this year."
Recent protest wereheld in Walmart stores in Walmart and Eastvale and in Mira Loma with six people arrested for blocking traffic according to KTLA.
