Eleven protesters were arrested Thursday evening at a Wal-Mart demonstration in Northeast Dallas. The demonstrators were handcuffed and removed from the street after they blocked Skillman Avenue with their protest.
Wal-Mart workers protested across the country Thursday calling for higher wages and better working conditions at the country's largest private employer.
The nationwide day of protests at 15 cities across the country, including Dallas, is being billed by organizers as the largest since Black Friday in November, when several thousand people turned out at Wal-Mart stores to demand better pay and better jobs.
A few dozen turned out for the Dallas protest.
The national protest was organized by a group made up of Walmart associates called Organization for Respect at Walmart , or OUR Walmart .
The group is demanding the company pay a minimum wage of $13 an hour. Wal-Mart said it's full-time workers already make $12.40 an hour, but independent researcher IBISWorld said the real figure is more like $8.81 an hour.
In a press release from The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union about Thursday's protests said:
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"Many Wal-Mart workers are struggling to support their families and contribute to their local economies because of low wages, insufficient hours and ongoing efforts to silence workers who are speaking out for better jobs."
In a statement Wal-Mart told NBC News:
"A handful of union orchestrated media stunts, made of up of primarily union members and activists, don't represent the views of the vast majority of the 1.3 million associates who do work for Wal-Mart ."
Wal-Mart is non-union. The company and union supporters have been exchanging allegations for years.
NBC 5's Ken Kalthoff and NBC's Kerry Sanders contributed to this report.
