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Throughout her article, “I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave,” reporter Mac McClelland refers to her employer as some rendition of “Amalgamated Product Giant Shipping Worldwide Inc” (394). She justifies the use of this nickname by explaining how “to do otherwise might give people the impression that these conditions apply only to one warehouse or one company. Which they don’t” (395). McClelland utilizes her legal liability to make her experience apply across the nation, instead of only in the one particular warehouse she describes. While it is clever, it leaves me curious as to exactly which and how many companies participate in the indecent employee treatment she unveils. The generalizing statement poses the danger of condemning potentially innocent
The white-collar union organizer affiliates in the case consist of: an office worker and the Office Employee International Union organizer, Nancy Rogers (Sloane & Witney, 2010). Base on Sloane & Witney (2010), “white-collar workers have long felt superior to their blue-collar-worker counterparts and tended to believe that joining a union decreases their occupational prestige” (p.13). It is synonymous to the office worker’s explanation to Rogers on the company’s culture as management’s influence toward nonunion workers to reframe from joining unions has resulted in paying them greater salaries, impose the idea of unions are only for manual workers and inappropriate for white-collar people to join (Sloane & Witney, 2010).This case provided a reference t...
Imagine being employee number 101 out of 1001. Now imagine working on an assembly line in a hot room filled with 1000 other women frantically assembling products for first world countries to use for ten seconds before discarding for a newer version. This job pays enough for you to get by but living in a third world country with low pay isn’t easy. What many people don’t understand is that the cost of production in a third world country is more inexpensive than it is in America. Hiring women to work in horrid conditions decreases employee loss because they are not rambunctious like men. “Life on the Global Assembly Line” by Barbara Ehrenreich and Annette Fuentes clearly illustrates the hardships women go through for U.S. corporation production. Corporate powers have resorted to building production plants in third world countries to save money. U.S. corporate powers take advantage of third world
Employment is hard to find and hard to keep and a job isn’t always what one hoped for. Sometimes jobs do not sufficiently support our lifestyles, and all too frequently we’re convinced that our boss’s real job is to make us miserable. However, every now and then there are reprieves such as company holiday parties or bonuses, raises, promotions and even a half hour or hour to eat lunch that allows escape from monotonous workloads. Aside from our complaints, employment today for majority of American’s isn’t totally dreadful, and there always lies opportunity for promotion. American’s did not always experience this reality in their work places though, and not long past are days of abysmal and disgusting work conditions. In 1906 Upton Sinclair’s “The Jungle” was published. His novel drastically transformed the way Americans felt about the unmitigated power corporations wielded in the ‘free’ market economy that was heavily propagandized at the turn of the century. Corporations do not have the same unscrupulous practices today because of actions taken by former President Theodore Roosevelt who felt deeply impacted by Sinclair’s famous novel. Back in early 1900’s in the meatpacking plants of Chicago the incarnation of greed ruled over the working man and dictated his role as a simple cog within an enormous insatiable industrial machine. Executives of the 1900’s meatpacking industry in Chicago, IL, conspired to work men to death, obliterate worker’s unions and lie to American citizens about what they were actually consuming in order to simply acquire more money.
Walmart, the world’s largest retailer and private employer, has established a highly profitable business centered on a low-cost strategy that utilizes logistical efficiencies to create a competitive advantage. Yet, to maintain this low-cost strategy, Walmart has engaged in ethically questionable practices, including gender discrimination in promotion and pay. While the Supreme Court recently ruled against class certification of 1.5 million women in the Dukes v. Walmart case due to a lack of proof that Walmart operated under a “general policy of discrimination”, overwhelming evidence demonstrates that gender discrimination is a persistent problem rooted in the culture of Walmart, despite gender-neutral policies (Biskupic, 2011).
The General Accountability Office defines a sweatshop as a “multiple labor law violator.” A sweatshop violates laws pertaining to benefits, working hours, and wages (“Toxic Uniforms”). To make more money, companies move their sweatshop factories to different locations and try to find the cheapest locations with the least regulations (“Sweatshops”). There are not as many sweatshop factories in the United States because the industries have been transferred overseas where the labor is cheaper and there are weaker regulations. In the United States, sweatshops are hidden from the public, with poor immigrant workers who are unable to speak out against the injustices (“Subsidizing Sweatshops”). Workers in sweatshops are forced to work overtime, earn below a living wage, do not earn benefits, and encounter verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Macy’s, JCPenney, Kohl’s, The
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
Neglect and the lack of care from society is affecting the life of Theresa Flores. As young girls they are being forgotten by their community and society as human beings who need to be cared for as they grow and heal from the traumatic events in their life. The stories of Theresa and Rachel prove events of human trafficking have taken place in the United States during the 1980’s-2000’s and are currently occurring. In The Slave Across the Street by Theresa Flores, Theresa informs the reader of her experiences with neglect and the effects these experiences have on her. As Theresa begins to show signs of physical abuse, the adults in her schools and community are taking no notice in fear the results would affect themselves. Theresa says, “By doing nothings, turning a blind eye, they
Fourteen thousand. That is the estimated number of Sudanese men, women and children that have been abducted and forced into slavery between 1986 and 2002. (Agnes Scott College, http://prww.agnesscott.edu/alumnae/p_maineventsarticle.asp?id=260) Mende Nazer is one of those 14,000. The thing that sets her apart is that she escaped and had the courage to tell her story to the world. Slave: My True Story, the Memoir of Mende Nazer, depicts how courage and the will to live can triumph over oppression and enslavement by showing the world that slavery did not end in 1865, but is still a worldwide problem.
Gould, W. (1977). Black workers in white unions: Job discrimination in the United States. London: Cornell University Press.
In the case of Dukes vs. Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (Dukes), the court found that there was a lack of significant proof that Wal-Mart had a general policy of discrimination (Schipani, 2013). The plaintiffs needed commonality to establish uniformed disparity within the Wal-Mart organization, and statistical evidence was deemed unworthy of proving this commonality (Schipani, 2013). The numbers were astounding; seventy-two percent of the hourly workforce of Wal-Mart are women, yet only 10% are store managers, and a mere 4% of female Wal-Mart employees are district managers (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). The numbers seem to reflect a painfully obvious presence of discrimination, and with Wal-Mart’s market power within its industry, it can be frightening to evaluate the impact their practices have on the American employment culture.
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...
This film has opened up a new perspective to me about the mindset of many of the people that have and are running many of the most noticeable household name brands that we have all come to know since childhood. The film does a very good job of explaining how businesses and corporations have not only grown but evolved over the last 40 plus years. We all know that at the end of the day, a company’s goal is to make money. “The Corporation” gave me a very in-depth look at the extent that major corporations will go to in order to keep their company successful and profitable. With many of the companies that were mentioned in the film, the average person such as myself, would never know that the companies that we support and patronize have taken part in modern day slavery to give use the products that we have come to love. The part of this that was most troubling was the fact that these business practices no matter how unethical we find them are in fact legal and do not
Employee stakeholders have another story. The discrimination lawsuits ranging from female employees not getting equal pay or equal positions, to disabled employees, class-action lawsuits stating that Wal-Mart doctors questionnaires to prevent disabled workers from applying, Wal-Mart does not rank very high with these employees. Lawsuits stemming from Wal-Mart’s failure to monitor labor conditions at oversea factories and hires illegal immigrants add to the rift in relations between the employees and the company. Wal-Mart continues to deny charges...
Schaumber, Peter. "Big Labor is co-opting worker centers to avoid federal law." TheHill. N.p., 26 Nov. 2013. Web. 29 Nov. 2013. .