This would be, as Joe Biden would say, a BFD. Finally, possible progress in breaking down the nominal wall of contract work erected by corporate behemoths in an attempt to avoid legal responsibility for workers. From Josh Eidelson in The Nation:

Attorneys representing workers in Walmart warehouses today announced the filing of a motion to add the retail giant as a defendant in an ongoing federal wage theft lawsuit. If successful, the motion would advance efforts by organized labor to punish Walmart for alleged rampant abuses, and to establish its responsibility for the actions of its contractors and sub-contractors in California and elsewhere.

Lawyers say the wage theft class action could involve as many as 1,800 workers in southern California’s Inland Empire (its class action status has been provisionally certified for a smaller group). As I’ve reported for Salon, Mira Loma, CA, workers from three warehouses brought charges to the California Department of Labor Standards enforcement last year. Workers say that they exclusively move goods for Walmart; each of the sub-contractors that hired them was employed by the Walmart contractor Schneider Logistics.

On a media conference call with the attorneys, warehouse worker David Acosta said he worked unpaid overtime, and sometimes worked up to 16 hours a day with only a single break. “There were years without respect,” Acosta said in Spanish. “Our dignity was thrown to the floors.”

According to workers, one of those sub-contractors, Rogers-Premier, responded to a worker-prompted state investigation by moving to lay off all of its employees in one of the warehouses. With support from Warehouse Workers United, a project of the union federation Change to Win, workers sought, and won, a rare judicial restraining order enjoining the layoffs. That federal district court injunction, and two others against the warehouse companies, are currently on appeal.

The court also found Schneider to be a “joint employer” with responsibility for working conditions, allowing it to be named as a defendant in a suit filed in October 2011 alleging rampant wage theft and retaliation. In July, a Change to Win attorney called this “a first step in breaking down this fissured industry.” A June report from the National Employment Law Project found that Walmart “is intimately involved in the daily operations of the Schneider operations, which solely move Walmart goods”; Walmart responded in July that it “does not have any direct contract with Schneider’s subcontractors.”

“Our breaks and rest periods weren’t being respected…” warehouse worker Jose Tejada told reporters in February. “If you answered, or complained, you would get fired for no reason. Or sometimes as punishment…you would work both the night and the day shift, and on top of that they would only pay you for the morning shift.”

WWU has been hoping for months that the discovery phase of the lawsuit would yield enough evidence to also have Walmart itself named as a defendant. Attorneys say that’s now happened. The motion will be heard in court on January 7.

I'm still sick and slept right through the alarm yesterday morning, which bummed me out because I wanted to go to the 8 a.m. protest scheduled at my local Walmart. So I don't know how many strikers and supporters were there. But when I swung by there at 10 a.m., all I saw were a lot fewer cars than usual in the parking. I don't know if the strike had any impact, or if shoppers showed up instead during the overnight hours.

So while I don't know how many Walmart protests there were, please remember that when Wal-Mart Inc. claims its best Black Friday ever, you're hearing from a company with a long, long history of lying and you should take it with a large grain of salt:

Retail giant Walmart has been hit by protests and staff walkouts at stores across the US on Black Friday, the busiest shopping day in the retail calendar.

The actions began Thursday, as workers protested the retail giant's decision to open on Thanksgiving, which is traditionally a national holiday, and what they claim are attempts by Walmart to silence protests from workers. Industrial action continued Friday, with organisers claiming 1,000 protests in 46 states.

Walmart workers in Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Wisconsin, California's Bay Area, Chicago, Washington DC and other cities took part in the walk out, protesting wages and work conditions. The demonstrations were co-ordinated by OUR Walmart, a workers' group that last month led the first strikes that the retail giant had experienced.

OUR Walmart workers claimed the retailer was intimidating those who protest working conditions at the retailer.
Walmart countered that it had had its best Black Friday ever and that the majority of protesters were not Walmart workers.

"Only 26 protests occurred at stores last night and many of them did not include any Walmart associates," said Bill Simon, Walmart's US president and chief executive officer. "We had very safe and successful Black Friday events at our stores across the country and heard overwhelmingly positive feedback from our customers," Simon said.

He added that the retailer estimated less than 50 Walmart workers had taken part in the protests. "In fact, this year, roughly the same number of associates missed their scheduled shift as last year," Simon said.

But protesters disputed the retailer's numbers.

Dan Schlademan, director at lobby group Making Change at Walmart, said "hundreds and hundreds" of workers were taking action.

He said as a result of protests, Walmart workers had seen their employment terminated, threatened with having their hours cut and that the labor board was now investigating 35 specific violations of the national labor relations act.