Costco, Brick, N.J. (File Photo)
A week out from Black Friday, all signs show the grassroots movement to pressure large retailers against opening their doors early on Thanksgiving Day is picking up major traction.
“There was something terribly offensive to me about this violent, gluttonous, materialistic shopping holiday eating up the one day we’re just meant to be thankful for what we have,” Brian Rich, owner of the Boycott Black Friday Facebook page, told Forbes in a recent interview.
Driven by a mix of a desire to uphold Thanksgiving tradition with a side of workers’ rights fervor, big box retailers Walmart and K-mart have drawn the ire of many by opening their doors early on Turkey Day, thus denying their employees the chance to spend the holiday with their families. RadioShack, which had planned to open all day, faced major pushback from customers and relented – a little – saying they would close between 12 noon and 5 p.m.
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K-mart – singled out as the worst offender – opens at 6 a.m. and some employees have anonymously blown the whistle on memos advising them that they would be “automatically fired” if they don’t show up.
“We continue to express deep appreciation in advance to all associates who will be working Thanksgiving and Black Friday,” the company said in a statement to the ThinkProgress blog.
We don’t want to give any extra publicity to those stores that are opening on Thanksgiving, so we thought we’d highlight those in Brick that will not be open. Besides the positive publicity, staying closed on Thanksgiving is likely good business: a recent RichRelevance survey showed 62 percent of Americans either “hate” (36 percent) or “dislike” (26 percent) retailers who open their doors.
Here’s the list:
• Barnes & Noble
• Bed, Bath and Beyond
• Burlington Coat Factory
• Costco
• GameStop
• Home Depot
• Jo Ann Fabrics
• Lowe’s
• Marshalls
• PC Richard and Son
• Petco
