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Working for Walmart Is Even Worse Than You Think
Victoria Alvarez explains why she and other Walmart workers nationwide are striking today, despite Walmart's attempts at silencing them.
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Victoria Alvarez (R) at a sit-in strike in a Los Angeles Walmart store on Nov. 13, 2014.
Photo Credit: Claudia Koerner/BuzzFeed

November 26, 2014 |
When I met Victoria Alvarez, 50, at a café after her shift at Walmart, I didn’t notice her knee brace. Instead I noticed her dark eyes and glittery nail polish, which in some ways is a great metaphor for Alvarez. She’s hurting, but her bold personality still dominates.

Within seconds of meeting her, you can tell she’s the type of person who's fun to be around; she talks with her hands, speaks her mind and doesn’t take anyone’s shit. Alvarez was born and raised in Mexico and immigrated to the United States more than 20 years ago. Her heavily accented voice is confident and captivating, and she had a lot to say.

She applied to work at Walmart during the 2009 recession. After a few months of work in Arizona, she transferred to a store in Fremont, CA, an hour from San Jose, where she lives with her husband in their mobile home. Alvarez works full-time and started at $9 an hour. After five years, she makes $11.

“In the beginning, I almost lost my mobile home because I struggled,” Alvarez said. “My husband was sick and out of work. I had to borrow from friends, from family for a very long time.”

But there was more to the burden of working at Walmart than just low wages. Alvarez said as soon as she started working in Fremont, she noticed things weren't right.

“A lot of people were punished for things they weren’t suppose to be, like not finishing their work on time,” she explained. “A lot of people were doing the work of three to four people. That’s what happened to me.”

Alvarez and her supervisor ran Walmart’s Tire & Lube Express department. She was servicing customers, making keys, dealing with tires, and carrying heavy merchandise.

“I was forced to skip meals,” she said, adding that many of her co-workers have to skip meals, too. Then the workers manipulate the punch-out clock to make it look like they took a break.

“They say, ‘If we find out you do it we’ll fire you,’” Alvarez said. “But then they show you how to do it.”

Eventually, Alvarez got carpal tunnel syndrome and showed managers a doctor’s note explaining that she needed modified work. But they wouldn’t recognize it. Alvarez had to call on California’s Labor Department, which finally wrote a letter to her Walmart store. Her managers then moved her to greeting customers and pushing carts.

“I had to push carts with the leg I have, with my bad knee,” she said.

When I asked Alvarez if she has healthcare, her face reddened.

“This is what happened with healthcare,” she began to explain, tears welling up. She pays $80 a month for Walmart’s lowest option for health insurance. This is all she can afford. While workers' compensation took care of her carpal tunnel surgery, an emergency room visit for appendicitis left her with a $22,000 bill.

“I said, ‘How am I going to pay this?’”

Alvarez applied for government financial aid, which fortunately took care of the bill. It’s estimated that Walmart benefits from $6.2 billion in taxpayer subsidies for healthcare, food stamps and subsidized housing.

“I’ve been through all this,” she said, closing her eyes.

I asked Alvarez why she joined OUR Walmart—the Organization United for Respect at Walmart—and she smiled. She recalled the day she saw her co-worker walk into the store wearing a bunch of OUR Walmart bracelets two years ago. “I joked with him and said, ‘Oh I like your bracelets, can I have one?’” Alvarez said, laughing. He told her that the group was a communitiy of former and current workers fighting for better working conditions.