BENTONVILLE - About 150 demonstrators from both coasts kicked off Wal-Mart’s annual shareholder’s meeting week Monday with a low-key, early morning protest, mostly on the sidewalk outside the home office of the world’s largest retailer.

Their message wasn’t new to those inside. The protesters, members of Organization United for Respect at Walmart, also known as OUR Walmart, and others, claim the company retaliates against employees who speak out about poor labor practices in Wal-Mart stores.

Many of them traveled in a caravan to Bentonville from points including Seattle, the Bay Area of California, Chicago, Maryland and Florida, picking up more disgruntled OUR Walmart members and store employees along the way. Their chartered buses made it to Northwest Arkansas about 4 a.m. Sunday, said one protester, who wished not to be named. The union controlled-groups have been protesting during shareholders’ week for years, said Kory Lundberg, director of media relations for Wal-Mart. Some have been here so many times, their faces are recognizable, he said.

“It underscores what a stagnant organization this has become,” Lundberg said. There are typically more OUR Walmart representatives than there are Wal-Mart employees, he said.

For Monday’s demonstration, most protesters wore their bright lime green OUR Walmart shirts with jackets and hoodies to stave off the early cool, damp air. Their original plan was to surround the home office, but they didn’t have enough people, and security regulated them to the sidewalk in front of the building.

For the first part of the protest, they remained silent, with tape over their mouths bearing the message: “ULP [unfair labor practices] strike.” They then took off the tape and conducted a short “mic check,” a maneuver where the leader of the group verbalizes a sentence echoed by the rest of the crowd. One of the mic-checked phrases: “Your effort to silence us has failed.”

One of the protesters, Venanzi Luna, an associate at a Wal-Mart store in Pico Rivera, Calif., was one of 80 or so workers who walked off the job on the way to the Wal-Mart protest and shareholders’ meeting this week.

“I think what took place was amazing,” she said, her voice still hoarse from the morning’s activities. “But at the same time, I didn’t appreciate how the home office treated the associates.” She was referring to a police mandate that would not let the demonstrators set foot onto private property at the scene. Police threatened to arrest them, Luna said.

“That’s not the way to treat your associates,” she said.

She was particularly disappointed that no one from inside the office came out to talk to them, as they had in the past, she said. She said it was “very disrespectful.”

“We have come out to talk to associates and offer them the chance to talk individually with someone from the home office. They generally don’t accept that invitation,” Lundberg said.

Today, another union backed anti-Wal-Mart group, Making Change at Walmart, will be touting a new website, WhosMindingTheStore.org, “with fresh perspective on challenges facing Wal-Mart leadership,” according to a release issued Monday. The website will offer “news, analysis, and information that you won’t hear from Wal-Mart,” the release said.

Business, Pages 21 on 06/04/2013