Approximately 30 health care activists, including several students, gathered outside of Wal-Mart and surrounding stores yesterday to distribute flyers to customers until police sent them home.

The Jobs with Justice Coalition held about 50 demonstrations across the country during Health Care Action Day yesterday. In Hadley, outside of the Mountain Farms Mall, there was a campaign to inform customers of the “Wal-Martization of health care,” and to vocalize the need for a national health insurance plan.”

Event Coordinator Jon Weissman called this “a nationwide day of action,” saying, the main aim for the event was to “educate the troops.”

“The health care system is broken and Wal-mart has come up with a new way to break it,” Weissman said. “Wal-mart offers a meager health plan and then finds ways to make sure its employees don’t qualify for it.”

Weissman also accused Wal-Mart of setting a precedent that other stores are now following, saying that he fears that “Wal-martization might spread.”

Rick Brown, the president of the Pioneer Valley American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Unions agreed with this fear, using the example of the threatened Stop ‘ Shop strikes over health care issues.

“When we were negotiating a contract; we heard again and again: ‘We can’t compete with Wal-Mart’ as an excuse for fewer employee benefits like health care,” he said.

Weismann said that the protestors were using Wal-Mart to highlight a problem that is overtaking other businesses.

“Wal-Mart is actively leading the charge to say you’re on your own,” Weismann said. “[Wal-Mart] leads the industry on so many issues.”

Protestor Shirley McCready, an Amherst resident, said that she came to pass out leaflets because “Congress just passed a horrendous Medicare Bill that pharmacists wrote to get themselves money.”

“We have to fight this,” she said.

Democratic candidate for Governor Council, Peter Vickery, also attended this event, passing out leaflets and holding a sign. “I’m protesting to support the right to organize and because I’m a union member.”

UMass Graduate student and union member, Leo Maley says that he and other UMass employees are all members of the union and that he wants to protest Wal-Mart’s “continual harassment of right to unionize.”

Customers had varied reactions to the activists.

“I’m bitterly against Wal-mart,” said one man who stopped to engage a protestor in conversation.

Another shopper was embarrassed to be shopping at Wal-Mart, which she normally tries to avoid. Some customers, however, were not happy at being “harassed,” as they said, by the activists.

“Get a job,” one woman yelled, while another repeated “I’m not interested, I’m not interested,” as she went through Wal-Mart’s entrance.

Apparently, the angrier customers complained to store managers, prompting them to call the police. Although Weissman said that Rick Galarneau, a Teamsters Local 404 member had spoken to the police chief to warn him of the leafleting campaign, some officers said that they had not been informed of the event.

Police said that protestors were stopping customers from entering stores, blocking store entrances and generally annoying the customers. Every store in the mall had placed a call in complaint of the protest, they said.

Mountain Farm Mall’s Property Maintenance Manager arrived soon after police with a trespass order to force the activists to disperse. Protestors complied without complaint since they were only planning to continue picketing for another five minutes.

Ben Armstrong, Wal-Mart’s store manager refused to comment, saying only: “Wal-Mart is not anti-union; we’re pro-associate.”

The Wal-Mart media relations spokesperson could not be reached for further comment.

When asked if he thought that today’s event would make a difference he said: “Based on the fact that this is nationwide…we are optimistic.”