Solidarity Is Growing in North Texas

Solidarity is growing among North Texas workers and their allies. "Go it alone" is on the way out! The Ironworkers and the Walmart employees are raising the bar for solidarity.

Walmart Employees Get Some of the Help They Deserve

When the "Walmart at 50" tour came to UAW 848 hall in Grand Prairie on May 24, a lot more than newly organized Walmart employees attended. There were Autoworkers, Transport Workers, Meat Cutters, Occupy Dallas, Texas Organizing Project, Jobs with Justice, and other activists. All had come to do their part in helping the nationwide OUR Walmart organization grow.

Kevin Blair at DAllas Walmart

The program started with an old fashioned union singalong, then went into video and live testimony from the Walmart workers. Most of the crowd then went to the nearest Walmart store, where they watched a video about organizing Walmart that was projected directly onto the front wall of the store! The manager and some burly cops soon came to drive everybody away, but they managed to get through the video twice before leaving! Organizer Kevin Blair is pictured with the store (and our drive-in movie) in the background.

Videographer Bucky Fuller of Occupy Dallas recorded the event for YouTube. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?NR=1&feature=endscreen&v=1a1zqThvCgI. It continues on http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DUnw25RKw9s&feature=relmfu. And

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vf_OyNLSbd0&feature=share

 

Strikers Find Big Support

In a rented room at the Wingate Hotel on Stemmons Freeway in Dallas the next day, striking construction workers gathered a big crowd of supporters to hear about their fight for justice and dignity in the workplace.. TheIronworkers Union, Brown Berets, International Socialist Organization, Workers Defense Project, OUR Walmart, MoveOn, Occupy Dallas, and North Texas Jobs with Justice were right there for them. The workers had already gone on strike against D'Ambra Steel at a construction site associated with the new Parkland Hospital buildings. After we discussed the problems of workers on the site, we went over there and confronted a top executive from Parkland. We made sure the strikers knew that we're up for the next stage of their struggle as well.

The day after that, Occupy Dallas people traveled over to Tyler, Texas, in solidarity with an action there. We're getting together, and it's going to work! Bucky Fuller has videos and pictures of all these actions.

Steelworkers Are Next

On May 30 at 8 AM, members of the Steelworkers union will join a general protest of the Exxon Shareholders Meeting at the Meyerson Symphony Hall, 2301 Flora in downtown Dallas. See www.oilbargaining.org for the workers' side of the story, and come on down!

 

join and/or donate to North Texas Jobs with Justice