WASHINGTON, Oct. 16 (UPI) -- At least 42 Walmart workers and labor rights activists were arrested Thursday while marching for $15 per hour minimum wage outside of heiress Alice Walton's New York City apartment and in front of the Walton Family Foundation's Washington headquarters.
"I've worked at Walmart for four years and most of that time has been part-time, with a schedule that fluctuates from week to week," Tyfani Faulkner, a manager at a California Walmart, told Vice News.
"Some weeks I'll be lucky with 32 hours, others I'll only get 28... Every single day I worry about getting enough hours to pay rent and pay bills."
"I don't know who exactly is delivering [the petition] but what we see every time when this union group holds these demonstrations, the vast majority of the people there are not affiliated with Walmart in any way," said Walmart spokesperson Kory Lundberg.
Despite Lundberg's claims, Cantare Davunt, a newly minted Walmart manager from Minnesota, attempted to hand deliver the petition to Walton.
"We can't live and work like this any longer, and we shouldn't have to when we work for the largest employer in the country, run by the richest family in the country," declared Davunt.
"Even with my recent promotion, paying rent is a monthly struggle. I'm pretty frugal but still I am constantly deciding which bill isn't absolutely necessary. I'm paid only $10.10 an hour, that's about $322 a week, or $15,000 a year. I have to take public transportation for three hours so I can get to work. One week after I paid rent I had only $6 left over for groceries. ... For the majority of Walmart workers, as many as 825,000 of us, our pay is less than $25,000 a year."
Hours later, Davunt was in handcuffs en route to booking.
Walmart announced earlier today it will phase out minimum wage pay-grades, although the announcement was criticized by protesters.
"When you actually look at the numbers of what I see at my store, some people will make 20 cents more than minimum wage," Davunt noted of her Minnesota location.
