Fired Walmart Workers Ask Marissa Mayer For Help

In the past week, Walmart has fired 11 workers who participated in protests against the retail chain, according to organizers. One of them was Vanessa Ferreira. After losing her job of eight years, Ferreira decided to take up her grievance with someone with the power to help: business icon, Yahoo CEO and Walmart board member Marissa Mayer.

Walmart activists have been putting the heat on Mayer, who as a member of an elite pantheon of female business celebrities, makes for an especially compelling target. In May, they staged protests outside her Palo Alto mansion and San Francisco's Four Seasons Hotel, where she has a penthouse apartment. On the eve of Mayer's first shareholder's meeting as Yahoo's chief, they planted themselves in the lobby of Yahoo's headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif., to ask for a tete-a-tete. And on Tuesday, the Walmart protesters infiltrated the shareholder's meeting itself.