Walmart Ending Bid for Greater Boston market

Community leaders and activists are hailing as a victory today Walmart’s announcement that the company is effectively ending its bid to expand into the Greater Boston urban market. “This is a tremendous victory with national implications,” said Russ Davis, Executive Director of Massachusetts Jobs With Justice, one of the lead groups opposing the proposed expansion. “It is a testament to the hard work of community activists in Roxbury, Watertown and Somerville, the three communities targeted by Walmart. All we asked for was a democratic discussion on the merits of Walmart’s case and Walmart chose to pack up and leave instead. Our main goal has always been to make Walmart a better place to work, shop and have as a neighbor and we hope Walmart learns its lesson. Until they address these issues they are going to face this everywhere in the country. We thank Mayor Menino and the other political leaders in Boston, Somerville and Watertown who stood up to Walmart on behalf of their constituents.”

The efforts of community activists included protests, petitions and in the case of Watertown, a billboard paid for by community members. Coalitions quickly formed in each of the three communities demanding Walmart meet local standards for wages, working conditions and environmental practices, or, as in Watertown, that they stay out altogether. “We took on the biggest corporation in the world and we won,” said Edwin Argueta, coordinator of the Boston “We Want Good Jobs” coalition. “It’s a great feeling. Our goal now is to organize Walmart workers in the existing stores in Massachusetts so that we can help make those jobs good jobs that you can raise a family with. Those workers should know that the community will stand with them in their efforts.”

“At the end of the day this was about justice” said Horace Small, Executive Director of the Union of Minority Neighborhoods, one of the leaders of the effort to keep Walmart from undermining local businesses in Roxbury. “The Walton family owns more wealth then the bottom 30% of the whole US population but they thought they could divide the community from the labor movement. They were dead wrong.”

Local activists will be meeting on June 30th to plan next steps in a fight that may be a sign of things to come across the country. “This isn’t the end of the fight until we change Walmart and change the economy,” said Davis.