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.
The author goes on in detail about Walmart’s employee selection process and the unique attributes they look for. Walmart looks to employee staff that will not look to unionize the company and employees that are afraid they wont be able
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.
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.
As long as torts are committed in the line of duty then the employer is liable to some extend on the employees actions. Betty Duke’s malicious and criminal torts are within the category of respondent superior in law despite the fact that Wal-Mart could not have authorized the commission of the said acts (Toobin, 2011). This doctrine therefore makes Wal-Mart totally accountable for their employee’s acts. Wal-Mart is thus liable for any acts committed by the Betty Dukes and in a small way had control over her. This was somewhat associated with the Wal-Mart’s risk of conducting
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
‘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.
It is a well-known fact that more than half the world does not look into a high name company they are purchasing something from. We automatically trust in this company because we enjoy what they are selling to us, but does anyone ever think to look into the labor laws of the store and see how they treat their workers? What kind of conditions do these stores provide for their workers along with seeing who gets paid what? For Forever 21, the article states that “In 2001, the Asian Pacific American Legal Center sued Forever 21 on behalf of nineteen apparel workers in Los Angeles, where the retailer is headquartered.
My organization is Wal-mart supercenter a major retail chain that has stores across the globe and services millions of customers every day. Where I have work for over a decade and after doing the cultural ethic audit, which have resulted in nine yes and fifteen no to the audits questions. Though, this organization has a clear ethical guidelines and policies dealing with employees, customers and managers there seems to be clear misunderstanding and signals what constitutes appropriate corporate ethical culture. As a result, my store’s ethical culture is in direct conflict with corporate ethical culture despite training videos and publications about Wal-mart’s ethical cultural.
because they are paying such cheap prices for manual labor, and allowing undocumented people to work for their company. This argument could also appeal to pathos, especially if someone watching it is also an undocumented working or was one in the past. Seeing how people are taken advantage of simply because they are undocumented is often not fair and to have such large companies such as Walmart continue to be a part of it and act on that is quite shocking indeed. The third argument that is presented in this documentary was the factory conditions that workers outside of the United States put up with in creating products for Walmart.
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
Holding first place on the Fortune 500 list for numerous years straight is a potent, paramount, company we better know as Walmart. Walmart has brought corporate America one of the highest revenue collections since the beginning of third millennium along side its lead competitor, Exxon Mobil Corporation. However, although Walmart has been known for its affluent status in the corporate world, most people in the civilian world are familiar with its implemented motto “Always low prices”. Nonetheless, with Walmart’s “altruistic” attempts to seemingly better consumers and employers lives, they are surprisingly ranked one of the worst companies ethically. Many cases over the years have been filed in regards to Walmart’s ethical behavior; in this article, Gogoi goes into particular detail of when an employee
This unjust act could be solved by unionizing together in order to help transform Wal-Mart into a better
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
Culture is the key to success of this multinational retailer and everything that is done by the firm is based on it. It is through its strong culture that it is able to deliver quality services to its customers and create a good working environment. The culture also ensures that the company enhances its performance so as to achieve its major goal. It does that by making the lives of customers better them saving them money. High performance is the foundation of Walmart’s culture and it enables it to strive for excellence and hold high integrity in what it does.
