© 2024 Boise State Public Radio
NPR in Idaho
Donate
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Chad Daybell's murder trial has begun. Follow along here.

Northwesterners Join In National Walmart Protest

NWNews | By Chris Lehman,
Chris Lehman
Published November 29, 2013 at 4:30 PM MST
Protesters in front of the Albany, Oregon Walmart.
Chris Lehman
/
Northwest News Network
Protesters in front of the Albany, Oregon Walmart.

As the Christmas shopping season gets into full-swing, Black Friday was a day of protest for some in the Northwest.

As shoppers pushed carts back to their car piled with toys, clothing and electronics, about a dozen protesters held signs denouncing Walmart outside the store in Albany, Oregon.

One of them, Bart Bolger, blames the retail giant for keeping worker wages low, not just at Walmart but at other mass retailers.

"It's this race to the bottom, and they have really set the low watermark for all of these," he says. "And now the other big box stores are imitating their behavior to be able to keep up."

A union representing grocery workers says there were nearly 1,500 Black Friday protests at Walmarts nationwide -- and about a dozen locations in Washington and Oregon.

A manager at the Albany location declined comment. But the company issued a press release saying it expected more than 22 million Americans to shop at Walmart on Thanksgiving and Black Friday this year.

Copyright 2021 Northwest News Network. To see more, visit Northwest News Network.

Tags
Economy Black FridayEconomyWalMart
Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.
See stories by Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman
Chris Lehman graduated from Temple University with a journalism degree in 1997. He landed his first job less than a month later, producing arts stories for Red River Public Radio in Shreveport, Louisiana. Three years later he headed north to DeKalb, Illinois, where he worked as a reporter and announcer for NPR–affiliate WNIJ–FM. In 2006 he headed west to become the Salem Correspondent for the Northwest News Network.

You make stories like this possible.

The biggest portion of Boise State Public Radio's funding comes from readers like you who value fact-based journalism and trustworthy information.

Your donation today helps make our local reporting free for our entire community.

Donate