Thread regarding Sears layoffs

Yes, you can be fired if you walk out.

However

Thanks to a wonderful economy, it is getting really hard for Sears to recruit and retain people, since other retailers (and other employers in general) are offering pay, benefits and job security that Sears could never come close to offering. If they let you go, especially if you are a veteran employee, somebody who is otherwise dependable (but not willing to waste a Thanksgiving only to stand around in a dead store all day) or are relied upon to work full time hours or close to it, it will really be their loss because they will never keep your spot filled. Due to Sears not even trying to be competitive to job seekers in this good economy and due to word getting around about how bad Sears is as an employer, Sears is having a staffing crisis.

Before I left Sears, several weeks or even months would go by before any position was filled. It didn't matter if it was something simple like cashier or backroom. Very few bothered applying to my former store. If anybody was hired, they treated the job as if it was a placeholder until something better came up, usually not much longer than a month of getting hired at Sears. Nobody planned on staying. It happened every single time. I'm a former backroom lead (quit, not fired) and I was told that it took almost eight months before somebody bit, then they were gone a few weeks after getting hired.

Not that there will be any customers, but if I were in your situation, I would definitely try to organize a walkout. Especially one that got TV coverage

"Don't leave before you have another job lined up and don't give management a chance to fire you for cause. People on this board are haters, and many rightly so, but leave or quit of your own decision and not out of emotion or what other people are doing."

--Signed,

A Sears Manager

Don't walk out. Call in sick.

good point OP