In the seven years that she has worked for Walmart, Venanzi Luna, 35, has started a new tradition. She doesn’t cook a turkey. She doesn’t set a table. She doesn’t give thanks for the most important things in her life.

Instead, each Thanksgiving, she puts on her uniform and goes to work.

“I work every year for Thanksgiving. I think it’s part of the territory. It is a retail company,” says Luna, who works as full-time deli department manager. Having been with the company for so long – earning a 20-cent-per-hour raise each year, and rising to department manager – she is now making $14.05 an hour.

To Luna, Walmart’s Thanksgiving hours suggest the company thinks more about its profits than its associates. But, she reasons, work is work.

“Some people volunteer to work, some people are forced to work. It’s our job. We take care of the customers, but at the same time, I’d wish to have Thanksgiving with my family,” she says. After a brief pause, she continues, “I haven’t had Thanksgiving with them in seven years. Or a Christmas.”

I feel that eventually Thanksgiving will be nothing but a holiday on a calendar Brian Sozzi, retail analyst

Luna, while keeping her job, is making Walmart hear her. She participated in a sit-in, joined the protest group OUR Walmart, and while she’s working on Thanksgiving, she has big plans for the day after Thanksgiving: a Black Friday protest in front of the Los Angeles store where she’s a manager.



Walmart workers are staging protests in front of the stores across the nation on Black Friday morning. The unofficial consumer holiday is the most important day of the year, when Walmart workers and their supporters are hoping to bring to attention their low wages, part-time schedules and unfair treatment.

“That’s a huge business day, so yes, you always have to work on the holidays. That’s a given,” said Marie Kanger-Born, a Walmart worker from Chicago, Illinois. “That’s not our big issue. Our issue is what goes on in the stores every single day. The thing is that’s their big day – that might be the only day we can get their attention.”

Sometimes all I have money for is a can of tuna and crackers Richard Reynoso

This year’s protests by Walmart workers will kick off on Thanksgiving with a 24-hour fast by 12 protesters. The fast, which is protesting the hunger suffered by some Walmart workers who can’t afford food, will be staged outside a Los Angeles store.



One of the workers participating in the fast is Richard Reynoso, an overnight stocker at the Duarte, California store. Reynoso is one of those workers who cannot afford to purchase three meals a day. As a result, he only eats once a day on his lunch break.

“Sometimes all I have money for is a can of tuna and crackers,” he said.

Black Friday: A boon for retailers

Workers and executives alike acknowledge the importance of Black Friday to the continued survival of the retail business.

While some Walmart workers might be leading protests out front, others have volunteered to work the day.

“We do have a large number of associates that volunteer to work on those days because in addition to a lot of excitement in the store, they do get holiday pay,” says Kory Lundberg, Walmart spokesman. Walmart workers who do end up working on Thanksgiving will receive holiday pay in addition to pay for the hours worked. They’ll also receive a 25% discount anything they buy in the store that day.

“The key theme with all these early openings and Black Friday is: these are publicly traded companies and these executives have an obligation to shareholders to maximize sales and profit,” explains Brian Sozzi, CEO and chief equities strategist of Belus Capital Advisors.

“They are all very afraid of not meeting the demand of the consumer, and the demand of the consumer right now is to be open on Thanksgiving, to be offering the promotions, the doorbusters and the web-busters. If you are closed on Thanksgiving, you are missing a lot of sales,” says Sozzi. “The executives are scared that in this economy, consumers are not going to shop on Black Thursday and then again on Black Friday.”

With stores opening earlier and earlier each year, workers like Luna have had to cut into their holiday celebrations with their families and go to work.

Keen shoppers queue outside a store in Cincinnati, Ohio on Thanksgiving. Photograph: Zuma Press/Rex Features

‘The only day we can get their attention’

Walmart workers have been going bigger and bigger with their Black Friday protests. OUR Walmart, a non-union group representing the company’s workers, has staged Black Friday protests three years in a row. In 2012, similar events were planned in front of about 1,000 stores, and in 2013, 1,500 stores. This year, the organizers say, the Walmart protests will be the largest yet – measured by the number of stores targeted, Walmart workers participating and non-Walmart employees who have pledged their support.

OUR Walmart has drafted allies like teachers and climate activists.



“We believe in good wages for hard work, “ Stephanie Ly, teacher and American Federation of Teachers president in New Mexico said on a call weeks before Black Friday. “That’s why I am proud to say that on Black Friday, teachers across the country will be at Walmart stores protesting, not shopping.”

These executives have an obligation to shareholders to maximize sales and profit Brian Sozzi

Leading up to Black Friday and the planned protests, OUR Walmart has organized a series of smaller break-out events and protests. Among them were the first Walmart sit-in at a Los Angeles store, civil disobedience that led to about two dozen arrests, release of a report that featured workers who struggled to purchase food with their modest paychecks as well as a global day of action with small protests taking place in countries around the world.

Only a small fraction of the 1.3 million US Walmart workers join in the now annual protests, says Lundberg, Walmart spokesman. Lundberg said each Walmart store has a crowd-control plan; where demonstrations are scheduled, Walmart has a plan as well.

These types of anti-Walmart campaigns are now commonplace and have little effect on Walmart, says Sozzi.

“I have not noticed any upset on Walmart’s sales, or Walmart’s stock,” he said. “The fact is, Walmart needs to be open on Thanksgiving just like everyone else, offering unbeatable deals. If they weren’t to be open, all those sales are essentially going to go to Khol’s, Target and to very, very lesser extent, Sears.”

Family-focused companies still celebrate Thanksgiving

There are some companies that are remaining closed this Thanksgiving, like Costco, Marshalls, T.J. Maxx and Nordstrom.



“Costco is not a traditionally a top holiday destination,” Sozzi explains. “They are more, I think, a place where we stock up on Christmas-type food a week before the holiday.”

Employees clap as Black Friday bargain hunters enter Toys ‘R’ Us, which opened its doors to shoppers at 9pm Thanksgiving Day, November 24, 2011, in New York City. Black Friday is one of retailers’ busiest days of the year. Photograph: Michael Nagle/Getty Images

Being open on Thursday is not just about the holidays sales, says Walmart.

“Being open on Thanksgiving really isn’t new for us; most of our stores have been 24 hours for more than 25 years on Thanksgiving,” says Lundberg. “We are the largest grocer in the US. We are open for customers needing those last-minute ingredients, or maybe they need a prescription filled or gas for their car.”

Being open on Thanksgiving might not be new for Walmart, but as more and more stores follow, being closed on this holiday makes stores stand apart.

“I feel that eventually all of these retailers will be open all day on Thursday and Thanksgiving will be nothing but a holiday on a calendar,” said Sozzi. “I feel it’s no longer a Black Friday, a Black Thursday. It’s really a Black November.”

And what will Sozzi be doing this upcoming Thursday and Friday? He’s working too.

“I go on a marathon analytical tour,” he said, adding that he attempts to tour as many stores as humanly possible to pick up information on America’s biggest consumer holiday.