Union organizers said employees were set to walk picket lines through out the day in Tampa, Miami, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los Angeles and San Francisco.  The strikes are timed in conjunction with Wal-Mart (WMT)’s annual shareholder meeting, which takes place Friday in Fayetteville, Ark., near the company’s Bentonville headquarters.  When asked about Wednesday’s strikes, a Wal-Mart spokesman said ,”What we are seeing are very few, if any, people who work for Wal-Mart participating in the activities. The union has to bus people around to different protests.”  Protesters want Wal-Mart to pay associates at least $25,000 a year, and to not retaliate against workers who go on strike.  

The push for minimum retail wages above federal and state minimums, which are frequently the starting wages in the retail industry, is the major demand of the low-wage workers’ movement. Fast-food workers recently held their latest of national strikes calling for a $15 minimum. While efforts to raise the federal minimum wage to $10.10 are stalled in Congress, states and municipalities have been raising minimum wages. The federal minimum wage is $7.25 in Ohio it is $7.95. Seattle just voted to raise its minimum wage to $15.

Experts  say even if retailers chose to pass the raise along to consumers, the average household would pay just 15 cents more per shopping trip, or about $17.73 per year.

 Walmart could give its “825,000 workers making less than $25,000” an hourly raise of $5.15 if the company chose not to repurchase $6.6 billion of its own stock, the movement said  Wednesday in a news release.

The company appears unfazed by the strikes or workers protesting at the shareholders meeting. Buchanan said strikers and demonstrators, in their past actions, have “threatened” to have an impact.