BENTONVILLE — About 100 hourly Walmart workers clad in bright green shirts filed into the home office parking lot Thursday hoping to talk to company executives about getting more respect, earning higher wages and receiving better benefits.
The group was met by Karen Casey, Walmart’s senior vice president of global labor relations.
The employees are members of Organization United for Respect for Walmart, or Our Walmart, and traveled to Bentonville from across the country.
Curious home office workers looked out windows and peeked out doors to watch the commotion at lunch on the corporate campus, 702 S.W. Eighth St.
“We are not trying to change Walmart or bring it down. We want to make it better; make it the way of Sam,” said Maggie Van Ness about the company’s founder Sam Walton.
Van Ness has worked at Walmart for four years, the past three as an overnight stocker in Lancaster, Calif., about 60 miles north of Los Angeles.
Her involvement in the group boils down to respect.
“They need to look at us as people and not just someone to do the job,” Van Ness said.
Chris Haros Jr. of Pico Rivera, Calif., has been a Walmart employee for 7 1/2 years.
“I’ve been with the company so long and have noticed a lot of things go downhill,” he said.
He said when he started working for the retailer there was a family feel that has disappeared.
“I’m here to tell people now that it is OK to speak out. We’re not here to bash the company,” he said. “We just want to make it a better place to work.”
Lorenzo Lopez, Walmart spokesman, said the gathering went very well, and the employees were able to voice their concerns.
“We appreciate their feedback and we want to try and be responsive to those concerns that can help provide a better experience with the company,” he said.
Lopez said Walmart has an open door policy allowing workers to discuss issues with managers, and if the problems aren’t addressed the communication moves up the chain of command.
But Van Ness said the open door policy does not work that way, at least not at her store.
“It just does not accomplish enough. We want to be heard,” she said.
Our Walmart is billed as a grassroots, nonunion organization, but was created and receives money from the United Food and Commercial Workers Union.
The union has a division, Making Change at Walmart, dedicated specifically to the Bentonville-based retailer.
Our Walmart began in fall 2010 and involved a lot of door knocking by members of the union, said Jennifer Stapleton, assistant director of Making Change at Walmart. She was in Bentonville for Thursday’s event.
Our Walmart is not an attempt to unionize, Stapleton said.
She said the union has invested a “significant amount of money” into creating Our Walmart, but would not provide a dollar figure.
“Certainly not as much as Walmart has spent to silence its associates over the years,” she said.
Members of Our Walmart, which reaches into the thousands, pay $5 montly dues, she said. Members form groups within their stores or geographic areas, but much of the activity is done via social media. Walmart has 1.4 million employees in the U.S. Stapleton said the union and Our Walmart dues paid the cost for employees traveling to Bentonville.
“Walmart associates reached out to us for decades,” she said.
The union has tried repeatedly over the years to break into the Walmart culture. The union ran the Wake Up Walmart campaign that tracked the retailer’s wage and heath care benefits. That campaign ceased in February.
The union also runs Walmart Watch, a website it describes as a way to “hold Walmart fully accountable for its impact on communities, the American workforce, the retail sector, the environment and the nation’s economy.”
Stapleton said about 30 employees from Making Change at Walmart traveled to Bentonville. Other groups, including Jobs with Justice and several religious and social organizations, joined the trip. The final group numbered about 150.
“This is to make Walmart a better company. This is a way to raise standards in the industry,” Stapleton said.
She said workers should have the chance to choose if they want to join a union, and they haven’t been given that opportunity.
Lopez said the union’s tactics often mislead and confuse associates.
“At the end of the day, when it comes to our company, our benefit and wages are competitive,” he said. “That’s why time and time again the associates have rejected unions.”