Robert Greenwald’s Documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

1329 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: What is the economic impact on the usa of outsourcing

Are corporations such as Walmart the driving force in the inevitable destruction of the American dream? Are the low-wage providing employers really to blame, or is it because they can not afford to pay their employees with higher wages and proper benefits such as health care and 401Ks? Or is it something as simple as greed for the wealthy that holds the poor’s head under the water of poverty? In Robert Greenwald’s documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, the American dream is challenged by a relentless behemoth of a corporation to which there seems no stopping or slowing. Livable wages are something that every human being is entitled to, no matter what race, gender, or nationality they are. However, in Greenwald’s film, the largest corporation in the world is put to the test. But is it simply propaganda? The film seems to tug at all of the proper strings at seemingly the right time.

families losing their businesses, unaffordable health care, gender and racial discrimination, and of course the overseas workers who live in unbelievable conditions; the film is an emotional roller coaster which paints a successful picture that Walmart is an evil entity.

One of the most difficult things to do while watching the documentary is detaching yourself from the people who are interviewed. The goal of the documentary is to gain the support of the middle class Americans who work their entire lives to achieve the “American Dream.” There are many Americans who will be able to easily relate their families to the grandfathers who own their own businesses, and it is quite clear that is what Greenwald had intended. Unfortunately for the two poster child family businesses in the film, neither of them survived the “neutron bomb” that is W...

... middle of paper ...

...iews/lichtenstein.html>.

Mishel, Lawrence, and Matthew Walters. "How Unions Help All Workers." Economic Policy Institute. 26 Aug. 2003. Web. 10 Oct. 2011. .

Pier, Carol. "Discounting Rights: Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers' Right to Freedom of Association." Human Rights Watch, 30 Apr. 2007. Web. 08 Oct. 2011. .

"Portions of Our Annual Report to Shareholders." U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, 31 Jan. 2011. Web. 12 Oct. 2011. .

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. Dir. Robert Greenwald. Brave New Films Disinformation Company, 2005. DVD.

"World's Most Admired Companies 2011." CNNMoney. Fortune, 21 Mar. 2011. Web. 09 Oct. 2011. .

Show More
Related

  • Deenu Parmar's Labouring The Walmart Way

    199 Words  | 1 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart Is Good For America

    722 Words  | 2 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Impact of Wal-Mart on the US Economy

    834 Words  | 2 Pages

    Wal-Mart has had a significant economic impact on the US, as well as the economies of countries that have relations with the US. Wal-Mart is the world’s biggest company of any kind, with 80 percent of the households in America purchasing something from the superstore; it is the nation’s largest retailer. Wal-Mart’s continuing price reduction has given Americans the advantage of being able to afford 15 to 20 percent more than they previously could. (Hansen) In a world governed by globalization and greed, competition has become rigid; as a result firms like Wal-Mart have utilized advanced marketing strategies to insure that they are on the ‘neck’ of competition, and are the core deciders of the market. (Ortega) However, Wal-Mart made decisions that were of a disadvantage to aspects of the economy, including the depletion on a small scale of Small Town USA.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of a Low Price

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    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).

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart As A Communist Regime

    682 Words  | 2 Pages

    To this day, when I walk into Wal-Mart and come face to face with a manager I once worked under they give me dirty looks. People report that managers will trash talk you to another job that applied for if that job contacts Wal-Mart about you. Wal-Mart has unrealistic workloads for some overnight stockers, their managers aren’t the best in the world, and their policies are harsh. This is why I constantly call Wal-Mart a communist regime; not because it shares the ideals but because it is just bad for everyone in general. Hopefully one day a high positioned power will restore the order and peace that once was Wal-Mart according to the history they teach you in training and that their policies and workloads may become more realistic and doable.

    Read More

  • Pay Day: Greed in Professional Sports

    1645 Words  | 4 Pages

    Sherk, James. “What Unions Do: How Labor Unions Affect Jobs and the Economy.” The Heritage

    Read More

  • Is Wal-Mart Bad For America?

    1169 Words  | 3 Pages

    Wal-Mart, a "Big-Box Retailer" employs more than 2.1 million associates worldwide and has two-thousand seven-hundred stores in the United States with many more in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Central America, Chile, China, Germany, Japan, Korea, India, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and the United Kingdom, making Wal-Mart the largest retailer in the world. "Wal-Mart accounts for upward of 30 percent of U.S. sales, and plans to more than double its sales within the next five years" (Lynn 29-36). Why is Wal-Mart so successful, and is Wal-Mart actually bad for America?

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart and Class Inequalities

    2364 Words  | 5 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart and Corporate Social Responsibility

    1340 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Knights of Labor

    1316 Words  | 3 Pages

    ... of Labor Unions in Labor Markets. In R. C. Free (Ed.), 21st Century Reference Series. 21st Century Economics (Vol. 1, pp. 163-172). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Reference. Retrieved from http://go.galegroup.com.library3.webster.edu/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CCX1700400026&v=2.1&u=edenweb_main&it=r&p=GVRL&sw=w

    Read More

  • Is Walmart Good Or Bad For Health And Social Care?

    1724 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • The United States Of Walmart Rhetorical Analysis

    1503 Words  | 4 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • A Critical Analysis of the Article "Progressive Wal-Mart. Really." by Sebastian Mallaby

    983 Words  | 2 Pages

    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 ...

    Read More

  • Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Prices

    1949 Words  | 4 Pages

    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...

    Read More

  • Walmart Reflection Paper

    1008 Words  | 3 Pages

    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

    Read More

More about Robert Greenwald’s Documentary, Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

Open Document