Unions Rally Protesters Against Walmart at Minimum-Wage Protest

Unions rallied their employees, students, and allies for a protest at a Walmart in Pico Rivera, California, kicking off a national campaign to pressure the retailer to pay a $15-an-hour minimum wage.

“The unions try to portray [their] protests as a demonstration of Walmart employees who are upset with the company [but] that cannot be further from the truth,” Ryan Williams, a senior advisor to Worker Center Watch, told Breitbart News exclusively about the protest. “Unfortunately, many in the mainstream media have accepted the unions at their word that these are Walmart employees, when they’re not.”

This year, Walmart spent $1.2 billion to raise the hourly wages of workers and is planning to spend an additional $1.5 billion to raise hourly wages. In October, Walmart suffered its biggest stock decline in over 25 years, immediately after they announced that the raised wages would cut profits by nine percent in the next year.

A video released by Worker Watch Center shows that the so-called “Walmart workers” at the Pico Rivera protest weren’t Walmart workers. Some protesters were wearing shirts from the Teamsters union. Other protesters admit on video that they are not Walmart employees, but just student volunteers. “I’m here with the Whittier College community and we organized a lot of students from Whittier College to come and support,” said one protester on camera. Another protester tells the camera, “I’m just out here to support.”

“These are not Walmart workers, they’re union activists from other unions like the Teamsters, the SEIU, the [United Food & Commercial Workers International Union], who have an interest in unionizing Walmart, not to help workers, but to help the union bosses who are trying to replenish their depleted union membership rolls,” Williams said.