Dear Friends,

This Black Friday – make history.

As we have seen with Ferguson, Missouri, poor and working class people are continuously treated as less than human by the governing class. This Black Friday, The Black Institute will stand with Walmart workers as they take on the wealthiest family on the planet – and we need you to help us make the greatest impact possible!

Join Walmart-Free NYC – and our allies – on the biggest retail day of the year to stand with Walmart workers who are standing up for a better future.

Date: Friday, November 28th

Time: 8am meet-up in Manhattan, 310 W.43rd Street. The action begins at 9am in North Bergen

Place: Walmart Supercenter in North Bergen, New Jersey

Click here to RSVP and for more info. 

Click here to spread the word on Facebook.  

Why we’re taking action on Black Friday:

Walmart is the largest retailer and largest private employer in the world and it’s emblematic of everything that’s wrong with our unequal economy. Far too many Walmart workers continue to live in poverty and rely on public programs like food stamps to survive, while Walmart rakes in $16 billion per year in profits.

The Walton family, which controls Walmart, has more wealth than 43 percent of Americans combined. That’s why workers in over 2,100 stores (more than half of Walmart stores nationwide) have joined calls for $15 an hour and full-time, consistent schedules. It’s quite literally the least the Waltons could do to do right by their hard-working associates.

We know, all too well, that Walmart’s business model has seeped into our local economy, right here in NYC. This is why low-wage workers have been organizing and fighting back – as we did last month, when many of you joined us to bring our message of frustration right to Alice Walton’s doorstep.

This Black Friday, we need the Walton family to hear our voices. We can no longer sit back while their workers are barely scraping by.

Join us on Black Friday. Help make a just America.

In solidarity,
The Black Institute

I don’t know about you, but this season, I’ve been thinking a lot about community. I feel incredibly lucky and humbled to fight for the environment alongside people like you — folks who speak out, take action, and help make the world a better place. So I wanted to reach out this Thanksgiving to send along a heartfelt thank you for everything that you do!

To celebrate everything that we’ve accomplished — and will continue to achieve together

— the team here at Greenpeace put together a video that I hope you’ll enjoy.

Isn’t it amazing what we can do together? In all honesty, we’ve got a long road in front of us, and many fights ahead in order to protect the planet we live on. But today, I’m full of gratitude and hope as I reflect on how far we’ve come already. Enjoy the video and please, share with your friends and family. 

For all we’ll do together,

Annie Leonard
Executive Director, Greenpeace USA

P.S. We truly appreciate all you do to help protect the environment. Your continued efforts and support make our work possible — so thank you!

I know the challenges we face can seem daunting. But we’ve gained real traction this year thanks to the outstanding support of people like you.

I wanted to take a moment to share the victories that meant the most to me this year, and thank you for making them possible:

• Ending palm oil deforestation. With unprecedented support from UCS members, we convinced corporate giants, including General Mills, The Hershey Company, Kellogg’s, Dunkin’ Brands, Colgate-Palmolive, and Procter & Gamble to use deforestation-free palm oil in their products—all in the last few months. UCS supporters sent a remarkable 753,000 letters urging some of the world’s biggest brands to change their palm oil practices and help stop tropical deforestation, which accounts for about 10 percent of the world’s global warming emissions. In the New Year, we’ll build on this momentum to pressure the remaining companies to follow suit.
• Clearing the air of dangerous pollution. We won a hard-earned victory this spring when the Obama administration finalized a plan to clean up gasoline and reduce harmful air pollution from passenger vehicles.
• Beating back attacks on renewable energy. We sent our experts to lead coalitions and provide game-changing technical analysis to campaigns in key states, including Michigan and Minnesota, where we succeeded in galvanizing support for clean energy policies. Why focus so much on individual states? Because the Environmental Protection Agency’s new limits on global warming emissions from power plants hinge on how aggressive states are at achieving pollution reductions. Success in the states is the key to deeper reductions in global warming emissions across the United States.

With your partnership, we’re making measurable progress toward a healthy and safer world by insisting that science informs the critical decisions made every day by lawmakers, executives, businesses, and consumers. While the political landscape presents more difficult terrain, we’re energized for the year ahead with concrete plans to navigate the challenges and make progress.

On behalf of the UCS board and staff, thanks for your generous support, and best wishes this holiday season.

Sincerely, Ken Kimmell President Union of Concerned Scientists

By CAP Action War Room

Retail Workers Should Enjoy Thanksgiving Too

Season’s greetings from all of us at CAP Action! While most of us are able to be at home celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday with friends and family, not everyone is as fortunate. Retail stores across the country, instead of allowing their workers to take the day off to spend with their families, are increasingly opening on Thanksgiving Day. While some stores are staffing Thanksgiving on a volunteer basis, others are not – and with no mandatory paid vacation in the United States their employees could be threatened with firings if they choose to spend the day away from work. All this, despite the fact that openings on Thanksgiving did not help sales last year. So in your Black Friday prep, check out the graphic below to see which companies are treating their workers fairly this Thanksgiving, and which you might want to watch out for.