Environmental Studies is the academic field, which systematically studies human interaction with the environment in which we live in. It is a broad field of study that includes the natural environment, built environment, and the sets of relationships between them. Environmental studies takes into account many different factors that help provide an enjoyable, fruitful way of life, such as national policies, politics, laws, economics, sociology and other social aspects, planning, pollution control, natural resources, and the interactions of human beings and nature. 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... ... middle of paper ... ...s. Everything ranging from sexual discrimination harassment suits to clean water violation acts. Works Cited Hughes, Steven. "The Stats Behind Walmart." Home Loans. 01072010. Web. 8 Aug 2011. . Greenwald, Robert. "Facts." Walmart, The Movie. Brave New Films, n.d. Web. 8 Aug 2011. . Aho, Karen. "The price of Wal-Mart coming to town." MSN Money Central (2009): 3. Web. 8 Aug 2011. . Davidson, Jerry. "Wal-Math." No Murphey Walmart (2006): 1. Web. 8 Aug 2011. . "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices." Top Documentary Films. Web. 8 Aug 2011. .
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
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 ...
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
Quinn, Bill. How Walmart Is Destroying America (and the world), And What You Can Do About It. Third Edition. Ten Speed Press, 2005. Print.
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).
the world. Wal-Mart’s products and services are priced to be the lowest price around. There is no
Ever heard that cliché stating money is the route to all evil? What if the subject of Wal-Mart was brought into the mix of this cliché? Wal-Mart is known as the highest money making supply chain store in America. When at the top of the food chain everything might not seem as it appears. After watching The Wal-Mart Documentary: The High Cost of Low Price, I am strongly against Wal-Mart in America because of several reason but will narrow it down to: the closings of small businesses, high crime rate, and discrimination against employees.
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
S. company reveals that Walmart 's mistreatment of its employees is harming the company 's reputation in the eyes of consumers, which is leading some of its most loyal customers to shop elsewhere (Negative Perception, 2014). Walmart leadership often denies the accusations being spewed about its organization but at the beginning of the 2015 holiday shopping season the company experienced its worst stock decline in over 15 years; the six to twelve percent decline is nothing to ignore (Hanauer, 2015). Critics blame Walmart’s subpar employment practices and low wages for driving away the middle class consumer in which the company heavily relies on (Hanauer, 2015). The company’s low pay wages contributes to the “demise” of the middle class (Hanauer, 2015). Often times Walmart employees can’t afford to shop with the company; this of course contributes to the decline in revenue (Hanauer, 2015). This concept is in keeping with the basic law of capitalism “When workers have more money, businesses have more customers – and when businesses have more customers, they hire more workers. It is this positive feedback loop between customers and businesses that is the fundamental driver of economic growth,” (Hanauer, 2015). It is obvious to me that Walmart is not longer living up to Sam Walton’s goal of being the best retailer in consumer’s
On to Walmart one of the biggest supply retail chains in the world and their social responsibility takes a radical turn. Under all that ‘save money, live better’ is a world that not many people see or experience. Walmart uses differesnt tactics to hide, manipulate, and operate under the scrutiny of the public. With such things as the environment, giving back to the community, responsible resourcing the wrongs have succeeded in being in the forefront of what consumers, employees, and the world sees. By setting up a smoke screen Walmart portrays themselves as a great company however, evidence shows the opposite.
What garnered the negative attention which would lead Wal-Mart into two decades of consumer love-hate relations was primarily two things: 1) It’s national expansion in 1990 which included the consumer watchdog state of California, the heavy union dominated states of Pennsylvania and Nevada and the religious state of Utah and 2) Wal-mart’s expansion of sales items and services such as groceries, eye care, pets and pet supplies, tires, videos, photography processing and studios, fabrics, automotive supplies and much, much, more. The more items Wal-Mart added and the more locations they added them, the more toe’s Wal-Mart stepped on. Eventually, the mumbles of discontent became outcries of unfairness to workers, poor labor practices and negative environmental impact. What started off as a great American success story now had become a monster that needed to be caged or at least
Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Dir. Robert Greenwald. Brave New Theaters, 2005. DVD.
Kucera, Barb. "Wal-Mart Has Perfected the Art of Union-Busting." Workday Minnesota. N.p., 26 Oct. 2008. Web.
Walmart’s throughout the United States continue to succeed. Two things that they continue to succeed at is telling the Walmart story in commercials, where we see they continue to lie and “staying the course.” Throughout the documentary they look into struggling families and how Walmart is a big factor in that. The Hunter family ran a hardware store by the name of H&H Hardware and after serving there town for 48 years had to close down due to the arrival of Walmart. Numerous other Mom and Pop businesses will continue to close down due to Walmart and the ability they have to drop sales and also knock the value down on numerous items. Due to most Walmart employees conscious, employees often have to stay late with no overtime pay due to the amount
Greenwald, Robert. "Walmart: The High Cost Of Low Prices FULL MOVIE." YouTube. YouTube, 01 November 2005. Web. 21 May 2013.