Walmart Unethical Issues Essay

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Unethical Acts in Wal-Mart Corporation
Wal-Mart, founded by Sam Walton in 1962 is a leader in discount retailing and the largest private employer in the world with over two million employees. Unfortunately, the retail giant’s slogan “Save Money, Live Better” seems to come at the cost of its employees well-being. According to PBS, Wal-Mart employs more people than any other company in the United States outside of the Federal government, yet the majority of its employees with children live below the poverty line (2015). Low employee wages and unattainable health care plans have caused a significant amount of controversy regarding their unethical business practices.
Wages
To keep operating costs low, Wal-Mart keeps wages low and offers employees cost-inhibitive health care plans. The average full-time Wal-Mart worker makes between $18,240 and 20,120 per year. Because of these low wages, workers turn to government aid programs such as food stamps and Medicare to keep them from dire poverty (Picchi, 2015). Regardless of its business model, Wal-Mart has a moral responsibility to provide reasonable wages and affordable health care to its employees.
Health care
Even when employees manage to buy into Wal-Marts health care plan, …show more content…

Ultimately, it made very poor business sense. Consider that Wal-Mart spends over $3B on advertising each year. Wal-Mart won the lawsuit and as a result got back the $470K. That amount equals about .013% of its advertising budget – money spent each year to encourage customers to think well of the company and shop there. Meanwhile, the airwaves and internet were flooded with the story and its negative impacts. The story was covered by a variety of news sources including MSNBC, CNN, Anderson Cooper, and the L.A. Times to name a few. All this damaging press could have been avoided for a mere $470,000 (Hartung,

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