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How Does Walmart Affect The Economy?

474 Words2 Pages

The documentary “Walmart: The High Cost of Low Prices” made 9 years ago by Robert Greenwald talks about the negative effects Walmart has on local businesses and the economy. Walmart is also criticized for its low wages and poor service, as clearly stated in the documentary. It also is argued that the company is a monopoly that hurts small businesses and the American economy altogether. This documentary is an effective argument because of the negative effect on people’s communities, their strong monopoly, their strong acts of racism towards black people, and Walmart’s negative effect on the economy. This documentary also highlights the many ways Walmart has been accused of harming its employees and the community, and it shows how the residents …show more content…

Walmart runs a monopoly by using its wealth, popularity, size, and credibility (ethos) to beat the competition. That is hurting the economy and small businesses as a whole, hurting everybody except Walmart itself. Walmart has been accused of harming its employees by reducing wages, bad work hours, and reducing hours. Walmart has been reducing wages as stated in the documentary because if you miss a day you will get your pay reduced affecting everybody in the community (pathos). You can only miss 5 to 6 days every 6 months till they fire you, making it very difficult to do things with your community. Walmart is known for offering overtime and when you do overtime they then reduce your normal hours to pay you the same they would have paid if you hadn’t worked overtime at all. Walmart harms their African American workers with racism. Where the manager said, “Innie Minnie Minnie Moe caught a N$%%@& by the toe”(logos). It is stated the worker reported that 1 in 5 African Americans that work at Walmart experience racism while working there. It had a terrible toll on the workers of color, emotions and mental health and nothing came to light because it could put Walmart in a bad

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In the article Up Against Wal-Mart, Karen Olsson exposes the largest retailer in the world by listing many of the retailer’s flaws such as worker mistreatment and discrimination. Throughout the article, Olsson uses anecdotes from employees that have worked at the company and statistics to support her arguments. Ultimately Olsson’s piece serves to harshly criticize Wal-Mart due to low pay wages, unpaid overtime, and gender inequality. From the start, Olsson relies on actual employee interviews to support her arguments against Wal-Mart. By introducing Jennifer McLaughlin, a young woman who has been working for Wal-Mart for three years but makes under $17,000 a year, the author builds tension between the worker and the company.

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In her essay “Up Against Wal-Mart,” Karen Olsson claims that the employees of Wal-Mart are mistreated. They are overworked; each has to perform a plethora of duties because their stores are understaffed. She contends that they are not paid according to their heavy work loads, causing them to be disgruntled. Her view is that they are underappreciated and underrepresented, and based on her essay, I have come to agree with her points. From the facts and first hand accounts she presents on employees of Wal-Mart, I agree with her proposition that employees are underappreciated.

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I also found out that about 5,000 lawsuits are filed against Wal-Mart each year or 17 suits per working day.. Walmart is most commonly suited for workers exploitation. In foreign countries employees rights are violated often in order to stop this the International Labor Rights Fund filed a class-action lawsuit against Wal-Mart for violating workers’ rights, arguing that Wal-Mart denied minimum wage, required overtime, and punished union activity. In the article called The Good, The bad, and Walmart written by Timothy Jordan said that workers argued that In some cases they were beaten by

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“Is Wal-Mart Good For America?” affords viewers a thoughtful analysis into the dubious ethical methodologies employed by the Wal-Mart Corporation. Unquestionably, Wal-Mart is not infallible and their strict adherence to low prices has pushed other companies out of business. For example, Rubbermaid, as mentioned in the documentary, fell into Wal-Mart’s paradoxical low pricing trap and forfeited into a merger with a competitor.

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234 Words | 1 Pages

"Is Wal-Mart Good for America?" gives a provocative examination of the effect Wal-Mart has had on the U.S. economy. The documentary highlights the changing connection amongst makers and the purported "big box" retailers, exemplified by Wal-Mart, that has added to the insolvency of some American organizations and a developing unemployment rate. While Wal-Mart supporters tout the upsides of one-stop, ease shopping, others are frightened at both the outsourcing that has made these low costs conceivable and how extensive retailers influence littler, neighborhood organizations. Cutting edge inspects the champs and the failures as it archives how: Worldwide retailers are superceding makers in settling on choices about item quality, sort and cost.

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They gain so much money and keep it to themselves, yet minimum wage is at $9 in the state of Texas. They are also wrongfully mistreating employees to the point of forcing them to quit their jobs. Sam Walton (the creator of Wal-Mart), would be so disappointed with the new way corporate has been treating their associates and customers.

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Jim Hightower accuses Wal-Mart of many things, such as necessitating employees to work an extra hour, on average without compensation. Also, Jim Hightower states that Wal-Mart deprives workers of equal opportunity and a decent pay rate. Jim Hightower, in a bleak fashion, depicts an image of Wal-Mart that most people wouldn’t have known about. The reason he does this is to make people aware of how employees are actually treated in a corporate America business. In the documentary about

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First, Olsson’s article and how this represents the mistreatment of its employees. This article discusses how Walmart employees are

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During his campaign Bernie Sanders said something that resonated with me “Corporate greed is a scourge on this country”, and the biggest example of this is Walmart. The owners of Walmart are one of the wealthiest family in America, they make billions of dollars each year, yet, they ride on the backs of taxpayers by taking advantages of the benefits and tax breaks at their expense in order to subsidize their businesses. There are so many reasons why Walmart is bad for America; it has put so many small retailers out of business; they have filled our landfills with cheap garbage; they have destroyed countless millions of acres with their sprawling mega stores; they have forced the elimination of domestic manufacturing with its cheaply sourced goods AND most importantly, they have created a class of poorly paid workers who need public assistance to get by. No business operating in America should be allowed to pay less than a living wage for its employees. They're exploiting the system, yet they refuse to accept their responsibilities as Americans.

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There is no denying that the well established company, Wal-Mart, is currently conquering the retail industry, but as the saying goes, every rose has its thorn. As the daughter of a business owner, I have heard a fair amount of company challenges and obstacles, and moreover, solutions to such disadvantages. When it comes to a company as sizable as Wal-Mart, I can only imagine how difficult it is to thoroughly monitor individual day-to-day operations. From my own experiences from shopping at Wal-Mart, I can say that I have encountered courteous and attentive employees, as well as uninformed and impolite employees; it’s circumstantial. Looking back on the times I was confronted with impertinent workers, although there could be a million reasons

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855 Words | 4 Pages

Wal-Mart has faced numerous lawsuits for inequitable labor. The huge market enterprise values its employees with little respect. For example, it demands for long hours and overtime shifts to meet holiday sales. This is one of the reasons why the company has earned an outstanding profit over the decade. Yet, with all the affluence the company has, it still does not compensate for workers' healthcare benefits nor their low wages.

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234 Words | 1 Pages

The article “Labouring the Walmart Way,” author Deenu Parmar talks about how Walmart is able to achieve selling goods at a lower price then any average superstore. The author goes on to explain that Walmart’s antiunion efforts, employee selection, low prices and high retention rate all contribute to their major success. Walmart’s stance on ant unionism allows them to keep wage cost down and keep all their profits up. Not allowing a union keeps Walmart with the power to keep low wages and force unpaid overtime.

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1215 Words | 5 Pages

‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ On PBS Frontline, May 11, 2015 ‘Is Wal-Mart Good for America?’ is a documentary that examines the relationship between Wal-Mart’s rapid growth and its impact on the US economy ever since it blossomed in trade productivity in the mid 20th century. The documentary, published on February 2014 by PBS Frontline, conveys a deep understanding of how Wal-Mart changed the living standards of many Americans and took consumerism and retail logistics in the U.S. to another level; by cutting costs through offshore outsourcing to China and employing cheap Chinese labor. The documentary focuses on the changing relationship between big retailers and manufacturers and the transition in pricing and decision-making.

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878 Words | 4 Pages

Walmart’s hard pill to swallow: Antidiscrimination Walmart, a US-based multinational retail corporation operating a chain of departmental stores, hypermarkets and grocery stores, is the world’s second largest public corporation. The corporation has faced the brunt of workplace prejudice allegations. Six women who worked for Walmart have sued the company for its inferior pay packages and promotion scope as compared to their male counterpart despite having better qualification, performance, and experience. According to these women’s 2010 court of appeals opinion, they were paid lesser than their male counterpart and had to wait longer for a promotion to an in-store management position. They demanded that Walmart must compensate its female workers

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1021 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, this paper will discuss some proposed solutions to the current ethical issues facing Walmart that could assist Walmart in its objective of continued growth in an ethical and sustainable manner. One of the major ways in which Walmart was able to grow and out compete its rivals was through its ability to provide retail goods to consumers at prices lower than competitors (Ferrell 407). Walmart ability to keep prices low is based on its ability to secure cheaply made goods from foreign manufacturers while also keeping the wages for its workforce low. The combination of cheaply made goods and a low paid retail staff means that Walmart can pass the savings to consumers which made it a popular retail shopping spot for lower to middle income Americans

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