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.
Walmart Lawsuit The below is from The Good, The bad, and Waltmart written by Timothy Jordan. Walmart is the nation’s largest retailer, second-largest corporation, and largest private employer (with 1.3 million workers). Wal-Mart reported a net income of over $11 billion last year, "surely plenty of money to remedy some questionable workplace practices" said Timothy Jordan Wage law violations,exploitation of workers, inadequate health care, and the retailer’s anti-union stance are some of the things that Wal-mart is often accused for, I found this accusations surprising because Wal-mart is a big company and I was expecting Wal-Mart to have more regulations and better working conditions.
It appears that Wal-Mart is ruthless and unforgiving in their demands from manufacturers, even at the cost of a long-standing business relationship with a highly respected American company. Ostensibly, Wal-Mart promotes the consequentialist ethical methodology with “better consequences”. As the book states, “Better
In the recent years Walmart has been far our performing its top two competitors; Costco and Target. With a market cap of 212,195,024, Walmart had beaten its competitors who remain at 65,969,279 for Costco and 43,701,237 Target (NASDAQ, Competitors). This means that for Walmart, the total market of all of their goods and services far surpasses its top two market competitors. As investors, you may ask why Costco is second to Walmart’s regarding sales. Well when we take a closer look, we see that “Walmart’s treatment of its customers and employees has not always been then best.
Publix and Walmart are two well known retail companies that hold great and horrendous job standards. When you talk about a multi-million-dollar corporation that has almost any and everything that a consumer could ask for in one retail store the first place that comes to mind would natural be Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart strives in customers first policy. Constantly making sure that whatever a customer wants or needs it can be accomplished. Wal-Mart also strives and lives on the motto of “Every day Low Prices.”
The main claim that is being targeted in Karen Olsson's article ''Up Against Wal-Mart'' is how Wal-Mart is a company which, despite soaring profits, one that shames Unionization and fights to keep ''associates'' quality of life low. There are several statements throughout the article made by Wal-Mart employees and union representatives that elude to the retail giant being a monopoly. The article mentions that even though workers are being pushed to the limit it is hard to survive without a second job or relying on food banks and government health care, which results in ideas like retirement being a foreign concept. The article sheds light on how Wal-Mart has a ''zero tolerance'' approach to unions, Managers are being taught to take offence
Walmart is one of the biggest corporaations in America. They sell pretty much everything! Whether is TV's, clothing, food, house accessories, furniture, you name it, they got it. Everytime I walk into a Walmart, it's always full with customers theres never a time where its empty. How ever, their amazing sales is what catches the citizens attencion.
Walmart is beneficial because it create competition that
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.
Due to the fact that there are more customers, there must be more employees. However, Walmart does not offer their employees a health care policy like other companies do, the workers are usually force to use public assistance in order to take their job. As how it is stated, Walmart does have an awful health care policy. As records shows, since Walmart is so convenient, everyone goes there to buy all the groceries, it made a lot of small businesses to shut down. In the economy, Walmart takes over a large amount of customers who wants to buy products due to their low price.
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.
In short, Wal-Mart’s labor practices are clearly immoral. Looking from the CEO and board of directors’ point of view, besides looking at where the company should be heading towards, they also know what is going on within the company as they receive feedback and complaints. In an example, there were complaints to corporate executives about the pay disparities and sexual discriminations but received little or no
The general consensus is that Walmart couldn't care less about what occurs at the laborer and contractor level. The only thing that is in any way important to them is that they can get bulk items on their shelves within the shortest possible timeframe. Therefore, the expectation of this paper is to unravel the legitimacy of Walmart lawsuits and if their business practices are ethical. Walmart is by no means the only giant retail chain being summoned to court by their employees; however, it’s simply the only one being indicted by its employees on a regular basis.
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.
The push Walmart is making to build stores in Mexico, South America, and China means that Walmart management in those countries may face the temptation to bribe foreign officials to give Walmart preferential treatment to zoning and other matters that require foreign governmental approval (Ferrell 414). Walmart has already faced this issue with its Walmex branch of operations, which has been accused of bribing Mexican officials to streamline zoning and permit issues that are often more burdensome in Mexico than in the United States (Ferrell 414). Certainly bribery may be more common in the developing countries that Walmart intends to expand its operations into. Therefore, Walmart officials are likely to continue to face the issue of how to ensure that its management of overseas operations maintains ethical standards and avoids the temptation of bribing government officials to give Walmart preferential treatment (Ferrell
