In 2003, federal agents held a massive raid on sixty-one stores in twenty-one states, finding 250 undocumented workers. Wal-Mart’s janitorial staff, which was hired through a contractor, was also found to have undocumented workers. In the end, Wal-Mart settled with prosecutors to the tune of $11 million [2].
The cherry on top of the labor issues at Wal-Mart is the healthcare offered by Wal-Mart, or lack thereof. In 2003, the same time of the raids, critics called Wal-Mart out for less than half of their employees being covered by the company health-care plan. Lee countered this by saying a reform to the healthcare plan was coming in order to cover more employees. However; Lee’s good intentions were undercut when an internal memo was leaked. The memo stated that 46 percent of children of company associates were without healthcare or received medical care from the state. What’s more, while it was true more employees would be covered with the new reform, the deductibles were so large they couldn’t afford to use their insurance. In essence, Wal-Mart was costing its taxpayers, welfare costs rose when a new store came to town. Furthermore, wages in a region with a new Wal-Mart were affected as local retail stores felt pressured to reduce their product costs, thus impacting the wages paid to their employees. The Public Policy Institute of California Quantified this effect, stating the presence of a
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However, the unlikely meeting between the CEO of the world’s largest company and a no-name river guide took place in 2004. The river guide, Jib Ellison, was launching his own corporate responsibility consulting firm and he wanted Wal-Mart to be their first client; the river guide was hired on that same