Sanders was invited by Cat Davis, a Walmart employee for more than a decade, as her proxy to make the case for a plan that would put hourly associates on the corporate board, which currently includes high-ranking executives from places like McDonald's, and raise its minimum wage to $15 an hour.
The Walton family, which controls a little more than half of the company's stock, is the wealthiest in the country. They have also become a frequent target of progressives, often led by Sanders, concerned by Walmart's treatment of its workers. On Wednesday morning, Sanders will take his argument directly to the decision-makers -- just a few minutes from company headquarters in Bentonville.
Putting workers on the Walmart board is "enormously important because at the end of the day, working people have got to have some control over how they spend at least eight hours a day," Sanders told CNN in an interview. "They cannot simply be cogs in a machine. To be a human being means that you have some ability to control your life. And that includes your work life."
By visiting Arkansas, Sanders is bringing his message directly to Walmart's leadership and, through his aggressive use of social media, likely millions of more liberal Democratic primary voters hungry for more direct confrontation with corporate titans emboldened -- and, in many cases, enriched -- by the Trump era. Sanders' 2020 campaign has sought to highlight his long track record as an activist, dating to the Civil Rights Era, and the candidate has, on occasion, spoken about his roots in progressive movement.
"Millions of people are struggling. And I come from that kind of a background," Sanders said on Tuesday. "I come from a family that lived paycheck to paycheck and I identify with people who are struggling economically. And I think it's absolutely imperative that we end this massive and grotesque level of income and wealth inequality."
Sanders has targeted a series of major corporations over the wages they pay hourly employees. Amazon raised its starting wage to $15 an hour in 2018 after coming under pressure from Sanders, who has also pressed Disney, which agreed last year to raise pay for workers at California's Disneyland to $15 hourly this year and to ramp up to that figure by 2021 at Walt Disney World in Florida. Walmart's minimum wage is currently $11 an hour.
Last year, Sanders and California Rep. Ro Khanna, now a campaign co-chair, introduced The Stop Walmart Act. The legislation would put a halt on stock buybacks for executives at companies who did not -- among other things -- pay a $15 minimum wage to all their employees, including part-timers and independent contractors. The bill would also ban CEOs from compensation that exceeded 150 times the median employee's salary.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon was eligible to earn nearly $24 million last year, more than a thousand times his employees' median total. Sanders' progressive allies -- including one presidential primary rival -- have been circling the issue alongside him for years.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren's Accountable Capitalism Act, citing German law, would require 40% of board members at large corporations be chosen by their employees. And Wisconsin Sen. Tammy Baldwin's Reward Work Act would also tighten restrictions on stock buybacks and require that companies "give workers the right to directly elect one-third of their company's board of directors."
"Associates deserve more from Walmart than we're getting right now, especially as the ones who create the company's profits. Sen. Sanders recognizes that," said Davis, the Walmart employee who invited Sanders and a leader with worker advocacy group United for Respect. "We should have the power to decide what happens at the company many of us have given our working lives to. This is fundamentally about hourly associates having the power to drive corporate change at the top, because C-suites and corporate boards are leaving us behind."
Walmart has been publicly welcoming of Sanders but, in a statement to CNN late last month, didn't offer any preview of how it would respond to the proposal he will give voice to on Wednesday.
"The company will respond to specific shareholder proposals once they are formally presented at our June 5 shareholders meeting," Randy Hargrove, a Walmart spokesman said. "We hope (Sanders) will approach his visit not as a campaign stop, but as a constructive opportunity to learn about the many ways we're working to provide increased economic opportunity, mobility and benefits to our associates -- as well as our widely recognized leadership on environmental sustainability."
Asked what kind of reception he's expecting when he speaks on Wednesday, Sanders didn't sound like he'd given it much worry.
"I have no idea, I really don't," he said. "I mean, I think among the workers who are there I will be received in a very positive way; among the board, which represents corporate interests -- the board of Walmart has representatives from McDonald's and other large multinational corporations on it -- I suspect that, from their perspective, I will not be received so well."
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