Walmart workers speak out at annual meeting: ‘I cannot survive like this’

[xchrom]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/06/06/walmart-workers-speak-out-at-annual-meeting-i-cannot-survive-like-this/



Walmart, the world’s biggest retailer, holds its annual meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, on Friday. The giant event attracts workers and shareholders from around the world and is usually a celebration of the company’s unique corporate culture. About 14,000 people are expected at the Bud Walton arena to hear the company’s executives speak. They can also expect to surprised by guest appearances from celebrities such as Beyoncé and Justin Timberlake that show the retailer’s pulling power. It’s also a chance to see the Waltons, Walmart’s founding family and some of the richest people on the planet.

But this year’s meeting may be less adulatory.

The company is facing pressure at home after a series of strikes and protests over pay and conditions. Walmart’s sourcing from factories with poor safety records is also under fire. Lobby group Making Change at Walmart raised over $9,000 on the crowdsourcing site Indiegogo to bring to the meeting Kalpona Akter, a former child textile laborer from Bangladesh. She is being accompanied by Sumi Abedin, a survivor of the deadly fire that killed at least 112 garment workers at the Tazreen Fashion factory on the outskirts of Dhaka last year.

Akter will call on Walmart to sign a legally binding agreement to improve working conditions in her country’s textile factories that many of the company’s rivals have signed following a building collapse in April that left over 1,127 dead.

[hobbit709]

1. usually a celebration of the company’s unique corporate culture

[xchrom]

2. right?!?

[ellenfl]

3. i'm disapoointed in beyonce and especially timberlake. eom