Protesters Picket on Black Friday Outside Atlanta Wal-Mart

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Protesters were present in Atlanta, outside of retail behemoth Wal-Mart on Black Friday morning.

Close to 25 pro-union protesters walked a picket line along the crosswalk of the driveway leading to the Wal-Mart store on Howell Mill Road at I-75 in northwest Atlanta this morning in an effort to make their demands heard on one of the biggest shopping days of the year.

According to flyers that protesters handed out to drivers, the group, known as Making Change at Walmart, was demanding that Wal-Mart employees be paid at least $13 per hour, get expanded health care coverage, be given full-time work and have the freedom to unionize without retaliation.

In a statement released by Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar this week, the store has asked the National Labor Relations Board for an injunction against the rallies and pickets staged by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union that have sprung up at stores nationwide, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“We are taking this action now because we cannot allow the UFCW to continue to intentionally seek to create an environment that could directly and adversely impact our customers and associates,” Tovar said in the statement. “If they do, they will be held accountable.”

Friday morning, Bill Simon, Wal-Mart’s US president and chief executive officer, reported in a press release that, “only 26 protests occurred at stores last night and many of them did not include any Wal-Mart associates.”

Wal-Mart boasts approximately 1.3 million US workers today. There was no official word on whether the people protesting in front of the Wal-Mart on Howell Mill were employees of Wal-Mart or members of the UFCW.

“We estimate that less than 50 associates participated in the protest nationwide,” Simon said.

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