There are around 4,835 Walmarts in the U.S. from a calculation in 2014. This is more than all the Costcos (474), Targets (1,792), and Aldis (1,600) in the U.S. combined. Walmart is an overpowering store. It steals small businesses customers, underpays their employees, and has incredibly cheap and low quality items. Walmart only sell items within a narrow range of brands, and only what every other Walmart sells. They don’t source local products, instead relying on foreign, or mass produced merchandise. This store is not beneficial for business economy. Small businesses beware- Walmart is coming to town. Within two years of a Walmart in Chicago opening its doors, 82 of the local stores around it went out of business. Walmart store openings …show more content…
Walmart’s average annual pay of $20,774 is below the Federal Poverty Level for a family of four. One spokesperson for Walmart said this: “More than two thirds of our people… are not trying to support a family. That’s who our jobs are designed for.”(Blasio, 2013). Walmart is notorious for wage theft. In one instance, the company forced employees to buy new uniforms—when they could have just bought them new uniforms themselves. One of the many lawsuits against Walmart’s wage theft took place in Alameda County. The employees claimed Walmart uses “assistant store managers” to do the work of lower-level employees in order to avoid paying overtime to those employees (Pieklo, 2015). Why anyone would choose to work there is mind …show more content…
Walmart is this, and sells this. Juliet Schor, a Professor of sociology at Boston College, says this about cheap products: “It is now possible to buy clothing; high-priced, and valuable commodity, by the pound, for prices comparable to cheap agricultural products.” What Juliet Schor is talking about is happening everywhere, not just at Walmart. An example of this would be, at Walmart, there are toasters for sale for less than $20.00, which is practically promoting low quality. Most of Walmart's products are not made in the U.S. Online, Walmart says this: “Important Made in USA Origin Disclaimer: For certain items sold by Walmart on Walmart.com, the displayed country of origin information may not be accurate or consistent with manufacturer information. For updated, accurate country of origin data, it is recommended that you rely on product packaging or manufacturer information.” Wow, talk about
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
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...
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?
Walmart is one of the most successful franchises of all time and continues to take fire from multiple angles, whether it’s about the costing of jobs, the wages, the health insurance, the small business destruction, or the environmental impact, but can always back itself up by negating those claims with facts that proves that it is beneficial to the community.
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
Wal-Mart initially began its operations in 1945, when Sam Walton leased a ‘Ben Franklin’ franchise variety store in Newport, Arkansas. After relocating to Rogers, Arkansas in the early 1950s, Sam Walton’s ‘Ben Franklin’ became ‘Walton’s 5 & 10’. By 1962, Walton found himself the chain owner of 11 different Walton’s stores across Arkansas. He then decided to rename the chain ‘Wal-Mart’, after himself. On October 31, 1969, after further expansion across the state, the chain was incorporated as Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Three years later, Wal-Mart was approved and listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).
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
In 1962, Wal-Mart opened their first store in Rogers, Arkansas. In 1970, Wal-Mart's first distribution center and home office in Bentonville, Ark. open and Wal-Mart went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Just nine years from that, Wal-Mart's annual sales exceeded one billion dollars. In 1988, Wal-Mart super centers opened across the country. In a merely three years from that, Wal-Mart opened their own store in Mexico City, Mexico; making Wal-Mart an international corporation. Not even sixty years has past, and yet, Wal-Mart is over-powering our country.
Walmart product selections is almost three times as much as that of HEB. Walmart is a one-stop-shop store. Customers can walk into Walmart and literally shop until they drop. Walmart provides groceries, baby clothes, boys/girl clothes, adult men/women, shoes, backpacks, diapers, wipes, baby formula, electronics, candles, towels, laundry detergent, cookware, gardening tools, birthday cards, gift bags, candy, costumes, school supplies, office supplies, mini refrigerators, outdoor activities, toys of all ages, board games, bikes, scooters, helmets, sport activities, a fully functioning automotive department, where customers can get oil changes while they shop. An Ophthalmologist office with in store purchase and carry out, a nail and hair salon, and a fully functioning bank. If that’s not enough, why go home and cook after all that shopping when you can stop and grab a bite to eat at Mcdonalds or
While Walmart gives jobs to Americans all over the world, Walmart also takes them overseas to China where labor is cheaper. In order to keep their prices low for their customers, Walmart demands that corporations keep their prices or they will drop the company’s products. When the price resin increased in the mid 1990’s, Rubbermaid was unable to keep production costs down, so they increased the price of their products. This lead to Walmart dropping their products for a few years and Rubbermaid selling their American production factory and moving to China. Which caused them to become
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 ...
Most Wal-Marts participate in the purchase of produce from local farmers. When you look at the bigger picture Wal-Mart helps towns and their
However, it also found that while jobs in an area may initially increase with the opening of a Walmart, the number of jobs in the area eventually decreases and Walmart often displaces other retail workers. The businesses that face the biggest challenge when a Walmart opens are direct competitors. I usually advise small businesses to try to get into other categories than
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...