Gray Fails to Deliver Walmart CBA; DC Residents Shift Focus to Council

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)Saying that Mayor Vincent Gray has failed to deliver a promised Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) with Walmart, dozens of community groups and residents took their demands to the DC Council on Wednesday. DC Council Chair Kwame Brown (at far right in photo), who has said he will hold hearings on a bill that would require all big box stores to sign a CBA, reiterated his support. Brown, noting that he’s a former Walmart manager, said he knows, "more about Walmart than anyone" and discussed their record of discrimination against women and minorities. He also heard from a DC resident who had worked at Walmart's store at Capitol Plaza in Prince George's County. Promised $12 an hour and full time work, she was instead paid just $8.75 and given 14 hours in her last two weeks at the store before she was forced to quit because transport and child care costs were more than she was making. "I'm glad Chairman Brown and others listened to our concerns" said James LeBlanc, from the Re-entry Network for Returning Citizens, "but we are clearly going to need to keep the pressure up."  Click here to email the Council now, to urge them “to step up where the Mayor has failed.”