A fire in a Bangladeshi clothing factory killed over 100 people on Saturday. The blaze started on the ground floor of a multistory warehouse that lacked adequate fire exits. This is the deadliest factory fire in the nation’s history. 

An local pro-labor NGO furnished The Nation with photographs of what they say are Walmart goods amid the smoldering ruins of the factory. Josh Eidelson reports:

[P]hotos taken after the fire taken the Bangladesh Center for Worker Solidarity, provided to The Nation by the International Labor Rights Forum, show clothing with Walmart’s exclusive Faded Glory label. 

Click here to see the full-sized photos. 

[Photo credit: BCWS, via The Nation.]

As the clock ticks down to Black Friday, Walmart workers allege that management has been subjecting them to captive audience meetings and other forms of intimidation in a bid to discourage them from striking. OUR Walmart, the worker’s association organizing the strike, complained to the National Labor Relations Board, Josh Eidelson reports: 

Today, OUR Walmart filed the latest of dozens of National Labor Relations Board charges against Walmart. The charge, announced this evening, alleges that Walmart’s national headquarters has “told store-level management to threaten workers with termination, discipline, and/or a lawsuit if they strike or engage in other concerted job actions on Black Friday” and that managers in cities including San Leandro, California, Fairfield, Connecticut, and Dallas have done exactly that. It also alleges that Walmart Vice President of Communications David Tovar “threatened employees” with his statements. OUR Walmart says it is seeking “immediate intervention” to remedy the alleged crimes. In an e-mailed statement, American Rights at Work Research Director Erin Johansson said, “Walmart appears to be issuing serious threats to employees to stop them from exercising their rights under law.” [The Nation]

Walmart denies holding captive audience meetings, but Christopher Bentley Owen, an overnight Walmart stocker in Tulsa, told the Nation that management held a captive audience meeting on Monday during which the highest ranking manager read a script warning workers not to strike on Black Friday. 

Captive audience meetings are legal, but management is barred from making certain kinds of threats.

Friday’s strike is expected to be the highest profile event in a series of job actions at Walmart stores across the country. David Bacon of Truthout accompanied some Walmart workers on a walkout in San Leandro, California. A group of current and former Walmart associates marched into the store and arranged flowers near the break room in remembrance of Enrique, a fellow associate who had recently died. After setting up their tribute, they went outside for a brief rally attended by unionized nurses, longshoremen, warehouse workers, and machinists. Community activists also turned out to show their support. 

Three on-duty Walmart associates clocked out to participate in the action. After the rally, the group escorted two of them back to the break room, to make sure their supervisors would let them punch back in. They were allowed to go back to work. 

[Photo credit: Supporters escort Walmart associates back to the break room to punch in after the rally. David Bacon for Truthout.]

Legions of New Yorkers are rolling up their sleeves and doing their best to help the victims of Hurricane Sandy. Some efforts are better received than others, owing in part to an astonishing lack of common sense by certain well meaning volunteers. Bethany Yarrow and her friends thought it would be appropriate to bring a lactation consultant proselytize to happily bottle feeding moms in the Rockaways who just wanted some diapers. Their problem wasn’t how they fed their babies, their problem was that their homes were damaged by a friggin’ hurricane:

As she gave out diapers and cases of infant formula to storm victims, Bethany Yarrow, 41, a folk singer from Williamsburg who has been volunteering with other parents from the private school her children attend, said she was shocked by the many poor mothers in the Arverne section of the Rockaways who did not breast feed. The group, she said, was working on bringing in a lactation consultant.

“So that it’s not just ‘Here are some diapers and then go back to your misery,’ ” she said. [NYC]     

These lactivists are worse than the Scientologists who pop up in disaster areas like mushrooms with their bright orange t-shirts and their “free massages.” (They aren’t really free…)

Nevertheless, some of the volunteers are winning over the locals with their willingness to pitch in and help residents do things they actually need help with, like demolishing damaged structures and hauling away the debris:

Jimmy Brady, 35, a New York firefighter who lived next door, was prying up carpet alongside the visitors. “If there is any way you want to get accepted to a family or a community, it is to help,” he said. “I’ve heard it from the hardest locals, that these guys are unbelievable. They get out with their little fedoras and they just start helping.” [NYT]

C’mon lactivists, if the guys in tiny fedoras can figure this out, you can too. 

[Photo credit: ma neeks, Creative Commons.]

• The charge that unions killed Hostess is as fake as the “creme” center of a Twinkie.
• Why haven’t any new mine safety regulations come out of the Upper Big Branch disaster?
• Marie Hald wins College Photographer of the Year for her photo essay on the daily life of Bonnie Cleo Anderson, a Danish sex worker who plies her trade legally to support her family. 
• Ashlyn Blocker is a 12-year-old girl with congenital insensitivity to pain, that might sound convenient, but as Justin Heckert reports, without pain as a guide, even the simplest task becomes a high-stakes obstacle course.

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]