FINANCIAL DISTRICT — Walmart has a gift idea for 99 percent of the people on your Christmas list: posters of Occupy Wall Street.
The mega chain — one the world's biggest corporations, which has come under fire from Occupy Wall Street for unfair labor practices — has become an unlikely promoter of panoramic posters featuring scenes of the movement’s Lower Manhattan encampment. Walmart now sells the posters online at Walmart.com.
OWS supporters spent months encamped in Lower Manhattan in a bid to call attention to economic inequality and corporate greed in the capitalist system before being ousted by the NYPD and Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
Walmart's massive color posters, which show two Occupy Wall Street scenes at Zuccotti Park, are priced at $52.25 for the larger 36-by-12-inch image, or $42.75 for the 27-by-9-inch size — and can make it to your doorstep in time for Christmas, according to the website.
Occupy Wall Street is currently raising its own funds for Walmart workers who are striking in protest of substandard working conditions at the chain — by selling an anti-Walmart shirt for $25. They also encouraged those interested in the movement to buy OWS' $17.99 poster of a woman posing atop the Wall Street bull statue.
"Give the gift of the iconic OWS poster and feel good about knowing that 100% of the proceeds will go to catalyzing the next wave of social movements," the group wrote on its site.
Walmart recently came under fire for putting food donation boxes in a Canton, Ohio store, asking employees to donate to fellow workers who didn't have enough to eat.
The OWS posters are available through Walmart's marketplace, which allows third-party sellers to hawk their goods through Walmart. The images, credited to an art prints company Lieberman's, are being sold through The Poster Corp on the Walmart site.
When asked for comment about the Walmart poster, Occupy Wall Street replied over Twitter: "We are building resources for the 99% to fight the 1%. Capitalism is in its last days."
Representatives of Walmart, The Poster Corp. and Lieberman's did not immediately return requests for comment.
