In his article “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” Sebastian Mallaby argues that Wal-Mart’s $50 billion in discounted gains is helping the well being of American shoppers. Malay concludes with “If critics prevent the firm from opening new branches, they will prevent ordinary families from sharing in those gains. Poor Americans will be chief among the casualties”(623). Mallaby is arguing if critics don't allow Wal-Mart to open new branches poor Americans won’t be able to share in gains like savings, jobs, and better local economy. Wal-Mart might have all these gains for the American shopper, but he doesn't talk about the negatives. For every gain there’s a loss. I disagree with Mallaby’s argument; Poor Americans, including Wal-Mart employees, are excluded from sharing in those gains because they work unpaid hours, and the inability to get health care coverage. Wal-Mart keeps these employees from sharing in these gains by keeping them in scared and in poverty. Ever since I started working at a market I then realized not only Wal-Mart excludes its employees and the poor from sharing in gains. The low paid employees at Wal-Mart will never share in gains as long as they work at Wal-Mart. Mallaby admits Wal-Mart can treat their employees and other retailers unfairly, but as a result everyone can share in the 50 billion in savings that American shoppers consume annually. The pay that employees get is the price they must pay for low priced merchandise. Because of the minimal pay to employees, Wal-Mart strengthens its’ consumer buying power. Giving the American shoppers the savings they need, Wal-Mart’s has ultimately been them successful. Wal-Mart has potentially wiped out the middle class as an employer, but the employees can now work and ...
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.... Food 4 less lets the government and taxpayers deal with employee’s financial and medical assistance. Taxpayers are paying the price for Wal-Mart and Food 4 Less. Wal-Mart employees probably don’t care about discounted gains; they cannot afford to get heath care coverage.
Living under poverty circumstances, workers most likely live in small apartments, drive beat down cars, and have filed for bankruptcy. However, at the end of the day they can't get low prices they cant even afford. Although I do not agree with this business model I have a job and it helps me pay for my expenses; I have no choice. Many others in my positions are losing out on gains that we can only hope to share on in the future. Critics should prevent Wal-Mart from opening new branches because ordinary families and their own workers will never in share in those gains under poverty conditions.
In Deenu Parmar's "Labouring the Wal Mart Way," the author discusses the business practices of Wal Mart, their impact on systemic poverty, and on existing work unions. Their business model forces competition to align with them, or close up shop. Wal Mart hires workers that would usually have a difficult time finding employment. That said, they pay them well below a living wage. Staff are also subject to abuses like overtime without pay. Wal Mart is resolute in their feelings towards unions. Their hiring process designed to cut out union sympathizers. This way, they can prevent any retaliation from staff seeking a better work environment. If anti-union efforts are unsuccessful, they close the store. It also forces existing unions to take pay
But Wal-Mart’s care for us goes beyond that simple relationship. As many of us have seen if we have been to a Wal-Mart, they hire people who normally would not be able to get a job. The company knows that by broadcasting itself as positive and helpful in nature it can increase its revenue and in turn increase the amount of assistance it provides to us the consumer. “In 2004 Wal-Mart donated over $170 million. More than 90 percent of these donations went to charities in the communities served by Wal-Mart stores.’ Even more heartfelt than this, Wal-Mart was the leader in goods based relief efforts for victims of hurricane Katrina. “Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers.” And the first supply truck to arrive at the superdome was a Wal-Mart truck.
Walmart is bad for America, as some say. The Globalization essay that was handed out in class had many good points. It states that Walmart puts many smaller businesses out of service. A recent study by David Neumark of the University of California at Irvine and two associates at the Public Policy Institute of California, "The Effects of Wal-Mart on Local Labor Markets," uses sophisticated statistical analysis to estimate the effects on jobs and wages as Wal-Mart spread out from its original center in Arkansas. The authors find that retail employmen...
A prior market firm used by Wal-mart (GSD&M) warned Wal-mart of the public image issues they were facing and had not addressed, even though they had been advised of them for over two years. GSD&M wrote in one review to the company that “sadly, after two years of empty rhetoric and ineffective publicity stunts, we now know that Wal-Mart has not only needlessly hurt its Associates and their families, but has pointlessly hurt the image and success that Sam Walton built.” (wakeupWalMart.com, 2007). Wal-mart has acted in a manner that blends with the theory of egoism. This theory “sets as its goal the benefit, pleasure, or greatest good of the oneself alone.” (wofford.edu, 1997). “Egoist use personal advantage…as the standard for measuring an action’s rightness.” (Shaw, 2008, p. 45). Clearly Wal-mart today is acting with interests geared toward their personal advantage and not considering the wreckage it is leaving all around them.
Wal-Mart represents the sickness of capitalism at its almost fully evolved state. As Jim Hightower said, "Why single out Wal-Mart? Because it's a hog. Despite the homespun image it cultivates in its ads, it operates with an arrogance and avarice that would make Enron blush and John D. Rockefeller envious. It's the world's biggest retail corporation and America's largest private employer; Sam Robson Walton, a member of the ruling family, is one of the richest people on earth. Wal-Mart and the Waltons got to the top the old-fashioned way: by roughing people up. Their low, low prices are the product of two ruthless commandments: Extract the last penny possible from human toil and squeeze the last dime from its thousands of suppliers, who are left with no profit margin unless they adopt the Wal-Mart model of using nonunion labor and shipping production to low-wage hellholes abroad." (The Nation, March 4th 2002 www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20020304&s=hightower).
A Macro-Sized Microcosm describes how Wal-Mart is a ‘macro-sized microcosm’ for America’s socioeconomic problems. New technology in the marketplace has created a conflict between labor and capital. This is ruining the U.S. manufacturing base. This reading states that Wal-Mart benefits by relying on suppliers and subcontractors. Wal-Mart buyers demand the lowest price possible, making it competitive with their suppliers. A way they do this is by adding cost efficiencies. These demands make it difficult for suppliers to provide employees with decent wages and suitable working conditions. The government endorses these circumstances. The federal and state governments support Wal-Mart with about $4 billion. This includes “free or reduced price land, tax breaks, sales tax rebates, state corporate income tax” et cetera. Most Wal-Marts in the U.S. receive government subsidy. This makes the price of commodities low and keeps them ahead of the
Nearly every American has or had shopped at Wal-Mart at some point or another, and we’ve seen the amount of hassle that many of the workers deal with every time we stand in line to checkout. Long lines during the night while short lines in the very early morning, it sometimes appears as if Wal-Mart’s so-called “associates” never stop working. The use of the word “associates” rather than “workers” strikes a hint of deterioration of their purpose of working—that is to get paid. This label established by the firm that proclaims the importance of equality merely sells itself into its own propaganda by cherishingly slashing wages and worker’s benefits because apparently, they’re not workers, they’re associates. To help hardworking Wal-Mart employees
There are three articles that will be referenced during this analysis. The first article is taken from the mainstream media publication USA Today. “Wal-Mart takes hits on worker treatment: Lawsuits, unions slam megaretailer”(Armour, 2003) argues that Wal-Mart is coming under attack from critics who argue workers are underpaid, women are discriminate against, and illegal tactics are being deployed to kill unionization efforts. Armour (2003) states, “company officials say they don’t know why the attacks are coming now, and they also say the allegations are unfounded.” The next statement made during the article states that Wal-Mart employees agree with the statement. The author continues reporting on the issues at stake, but focuses mostly on how unions may be less relevant in today’s world. The article makes mention of both sides of the argument, but the rhetoric and terminology used leans towards the portrayal of Wal-Mart as a victim of biased attacks to further union interests in the market.
The Wal-Mart Corporation is a multi-billion dollar low-cost retail organization, consisting of 6400 stores and 1.8 million sales associates worldwide. Wal-Mart’s influence on the retail world and the enormity of their corporate size is unparalleled. Wal-Mart can easily report sales of $312.4 billion dollars per fiscal quarter and net profits of $3.8 billion dollars. Wal-Mart promises her customers "Always low prices. Always!" and upholds this motto by providing low prices to her customers and high return on investment to her stockholders. One way that Wal-Mart has managed to maintain a competitive edge over other low cost retail giants and provide low prices is by cutting wages and by not offering too many company benefits to their employees. Full-time employee working at Wal-Mart only make $8 an hour, while only 45% of the workers can afford to be covered by health insurance. Wal-Mart also increase part time employees from 20 percent to 40 percent so that they do not have to cover all of their employees for health insurance . Although Wal-Mart may not provide excellent benefits to her employees, it successfully performs as a legitimate business operating in a capitalistic society. Wal-Mart upholds the primary fiduciary duty to satisfy her stockholder and follows free the market libertarianism model, which states that a business should not interfering with the free market. In a free market Wal-Mart has a direct responsibility to her primary stockholders rather than the employees of a company.
Today Wal-mart has a higher GDP than the entire country of Switzerland, but don’t worry they’re pretty neutral about it. But there has also been news about how they treat there employees. In 2004 an article was released entitled Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart, and soon after Washington got involved. The bad publicity took a toll on Wal-mart and in fact is still today, Maryland passed a law in January, 2006, that said larger employers, such as Wal-mart, must spend at least 8% of their payroll on health benefits for their employees, and now many other states have followed suit. The bad publicity also made it so 8% of customers shop elsewhere because of what they’ve heard, this has caused lower expected sales around the holidays during 2004, and 2005. Some things they’ve done is in 2006 they paid employees on average 9.36 dollars, while other major retailers like Target and Sears pay on average 11.08 dollars. While this can be easily denied by Wal-mart, another way they have gained bad publicity is from something called off-the-clock work. If they had not finished their job they had to clock out and then still finish their job, meaning they wouldn’t get paid for
Within an excerpt from, “The United States of Wal-Mart,” John Dicker explains that Wal-Mart is a troubling corporation. Dicker begins his article by discussing why the store is so popular within the news in an age of global terrorism, coming to the conclusion that Wal-Mart has a huge scope in the United States and that it has more scandals, lawsuits, and stories than any other supercenter. Continually, he goes on to explain that Wal-Mart outsources jobs and their companies demands makes it hard for employees to have livable wages and good working conditions. Furthermore, Dicker addresses the claim that Wal-Mart provides good jobs, by destroying this perception with statistics showing how employees live in poverty and that their union scene
...ir employees without their knowledge at all. Because of their prices being low, wage is even lower to make an over decent profit. Wal-Mart is a growing competitor to those who have enough trouble just surviving. It is easier for everyone just to back-off and let them do what they want, but they have taken advantage of that and the people do not like that.
Wal-Mart, the corporate retail giant known for promising customers “Always low prices, Always!” has been both praised and attacked in regards of financial treatment to shareholders and stakeholders respectively. Investors that own shares of Wal-Mart are content with the company, as its decision to annually spend $7.6 billion to repurchase stock is seen as a strategic move in increasing shareholder wealth. On the other hand, Wal-Mart has received scrutiny for violating corporate social responsibility, in the waking trend of its employees earning wages below the poverty level and the impact this has on the economy.
Many employees claim low wages, no benefits, irregular schedules, and unreliable hours as some of the horrible working conditions they have to endure. Walmart employees put together different unions all the time to try and protest or strike about the wages, treatment and anything else that seems to come along with being an employee of Walmart. Walmart does not take well to these unions. Women of Walmart seem to have it the hardest though. As recently as 2013, despite the fact that women account for as much as 57 percent of Walmart’s U.S. workforce, women were paid $1.16 less per hour (Osterndorf). In an article about Walmart and how it treats employees wanting to take sick days, a woman in fear of losing her job at a North Huntingdon Walmart, went back to work even though she had doctors' notes and hospitalization recorded, which were both rejected by her supervisors, to excuse her from work due to a miscarriage. She was worried the she would get fired due to absences so she went back (Abrams). Walmart also does not give out good health care to its employees. There are many claims of Walmart cutting health care for employees or finding the cheapest possible solution for an employee's health care. In 2014, the company cut insurance benefits to its part-time employees (Osterndorf). In a New York Times article about health care called, Walmart to End Health Coverage for 30,000 Part-Time Workers, it stated
Walmart has had a long-standing presence in America society since the middle of the 20th century, seen as a place to get everything done, Walmart has become a fixation in our society. From grocery shopping, to changing your oil and even filing your annual tax returns, Walmart is always there, everyday. Started by Sam Walton in 1962, it began as a small operation catering to a small Arkansas community. It was started on principles very similar to small local businesses in small towns. Today Walmart has gotten a different, darker reputation. On the surface, Walmart may seem like the solution to everyday issues. Low-income families are attracted to the low prices, and people who work odd hours benefit greatly from the 24 hours a day that many Walmarts are open. Lately, Walmart has also managed to be publicly recognized as a store that sells many of today’s green products, including organic food, environmental conscious cleaning products, as well as, paper products made from recycled paper. However, underneath all this, Walmart has a different side. Exploitation of its workers is widespread amongst Walmarts who do not belong to a union, especially in the United States. Wal...