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.
In the essay titled “Labouring the Walmart Way”, author Deenu Parmar explains the unhealthy effects of Walmart, how to stop them, and the challenges of doing so. Parmar begins by detailing how Walmart has done little for local economies. By hiring financially vulnerable people, the franchise insures that no one would dare to unionize; thus ensuring employees will only earn the bare minimum, and thus out-competing local competition. Parmar also goes on to explain how a local community removed Walmart. They were able to do this through the use of fierce union protests that made the store unprofitable.
This is most likely because they choose to mistreat and exploit their employees for higher profit gain. Based on quotes from former and current Wal-Mart employees and Olsson’s own words, a union is definitely necessary for Wal-Mart. From reading this essay, I see just how obvious the mistreatment is; constantly overworked employees are struggling to keep themselves afloat as their superiors are pressuring them to work more with no pay. This has been illegal for well over 50 years and unionization was deemed lawful in the 1840s. This being said, I feel that Olsson’s claim of underrepresentation is completely
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
Conflicts between workers and employers are prevalent to this day. From fair wages, to better working conditions, and even to appropriate healthcare, there is always some form of questioning that needs to be addressed. Dating back to the late 1800’s the economy and labor market of the United States underwent massive changes which mainly revolved around people of all different racial and socioeconomic backgrounds becoming wage laborers. Due to these previously unheard-of changes, a conflict between the employees and employers began. Therefore, in order to resolve labor issues, through great difficulty workers created unions and protested against their employers.
Walmart was founded in the summer of 1962 by Kingfisher, Oklahoma native Sam Walton. Although Walton’s original vision for the store was relatively modest, the half century since its founding has seen Walmart morph into one of the biggest companies in the world. Today headed by one Doug McMillon, Walmart boasts more than 5000 stores in the United States of America alone and employs more than 1.5 million people. Walmart is undoubtedly an American institution, yet each Walmart store feels like its own little country. Walmart seems to have its own laws and customs and the people who shop their on a regular basis appear almost primitive in their behavior as they go about raiding the store’s shelves and wrestling with fellow customers for discount flat screen televisions and bulk packages of two-ply toilet paper.
The desire to gain fair working conditions and better rights fuels workers to be apart or create labor unions. Barbara Ehrenreich a low-wage worker at Walmart experiences poor working conditions. She is not allowed to sit on the job and cannot take unscheduled breaks. She works for hours and only gets 15 minute
Since the company was founded as a corner store, the company’s business plan has always emphasized on expect more, pay less brand promise that sets it apart from its chief rival, Walmart. Although, Walmart is known for its low prices and offers a large selection to its customers; it’s customer service is often found to be nonexistent. This
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
David, thanks I agree with your concerns on Walmart's not withholding standards with respect to employee compensation and poor working conditions at their offshore facilities. In terms of employees, Walmart may be doing things that are legal but that does not makes it right from moral and ethical point of view. As its said what is legal does not means it is right. My position was from consumer / customer point of view.
Companies and corporations were also held accountable for the treatment of their employees from the formation of unions by the people. Today we see that the treatment of employees has become prioritized by some businesses and the evolution of voting
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
There are many Walmart’s in the United States 4,672 is a rough estimate. Even though there are many out there, Walmart employees are paid low wages. Its low prices are possible Due to the low wages it pays it workers. “Wal-Mart and its apologists claim that these low prices are saving people hundreds of billions of dollars a year. But the truth is that Wal-Mart’s low prices serve the entire capitalist class in the United States.
For instance, the wage for a cashier is now $11.55 which is only slightly higher than the minimum wages of $11.40 in Ontario. This causes high turnover rate as a lot of staffs are working as part time and frequently quite due to the low pay. A recommendation for Walmart is to develop a formal human resource program and fair performance review process to manage employee compensation. When employees perform at a higher level, their pay rate may be justified according to their performance appraisals. Providing faster promotions is another way to keep people motivated and improve their performance.
