One of the most famous and successful company in America is Walmart. Walmart is a retail corporation that sells almost all your everyday needs in life for a ridiculously cheap price with their mission stating “We save people money so they can live better”. As Walmart is such a huge franchise it is inevitable that there will be criticism towards it. Most people who are living near a Walmart are a stakeholder as they are probably shopping at Walmart such as my family and me. Also Walmart currently employees more than 2 million people worldwide who are all stakeholders. There has been much criticism from employees such as working conditions and low wages. In some cases workers were denied overtime pay despite working off the clock and also taking a rest or lunch break were not given. It has said that Walmart also discriminates towards woman and especially towards the elderly and disabled. Walmart has paid …show more content…
Whenever a huge corporation such as Walmart moves into an area with local stores and merchants, all of them are bound to go out of business because all the customers will be attracted to the huge selections and discount. There has been huge protest by these merchants and locals whenever a Walmart is being decided to be implanted there. This hurts their business which can make families go bankrupt and although it can create job opportunities within the Walmart but as you know Walmart has really bad working conditions such as no wages and unfair treatment. Walmart is also to be said to be the most poorly run and understaffed retail store. In previous studies Walmart was shown to be listed as the lowest in customer satisfaction. If you have visited a Walmart previously you might have seen the customers swarming over just 2 or 3 checkout lanes. In recent days Walmart has been better about this by opening more lanes up whenever there are more
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Show MoreBut Wal-Mart’s care for us goes beyond that simple relationship. As many of us have seen if we have been to a Wal-Mart, they hire people who normally would not be able to get a job. The company knows that by broadcasting itself as positive and helpful in nature it can increase its revenue and in turn increase the amount of assistance it provides to us the consumer. “In 2004 Wal-Mart donated over $170 million. More than 90 percent of these donations went to charities in the communities served by Wal-Mart stores.’ Even more heartfelt than this, Wal-Mart was the leader in goods based relief efforts for victims of hurricane Katrina. “Walmart’s response to the hurricane was lauded even by its critics: it donated more than $20 million worth of merchandise, including food for 100,000 meals, and it promised jobs for all of its displaced workers.” And the first supply truck to arrive at the superdome was a Wal-Mart truck.
Few companies create as much controversy as Wal-Mart has done with its approach to maintaining high profits with low costs. Individuals either love or hate Wal-Mart. There are consumers who like the low prices and convenience of shopping at Wal-Mart. Supporters of Wal-Mart also laud the fact that the company creates multiple jobs for not just the individuals who are employed within the stores but also those who create the products that are sold in the stores. Critics of Wal-Mart have issues with the treatment of those individuals who work at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has a poor track record when it comes to Fair Labor Practices by giving low wages, bad healthcare coverage, and treats employees. Low wages, no benefits, irregular schedules, and unreliable hours are just some of the horrible working conditions most Walmart workers have to endure.
Wal-Mart has been found guilty of discrimination against women employees, minorities, demeaning workers with disabilities and inequality based on sexual orientation. Wal-Mart was found guilty of gender bias in 2004. Customers have sued Wal-Mart claiming racial profiling as have a group of bla...
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
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.
“Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson, a senior editor at Texas Monthly and who’s article appeared in Mother Jones, introduces her article through the perspective of a Wal-Mart worker. She focuses on the negatives of Wal-Mart by telling the real life struggles of different Wal-Mart employees. “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” by Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist for the Washington Post, focuses his article on what Wal-Mart critics say and attempts to defend Wal-Mart by comparing Wal-Mart to other retailers. Even though Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby both examine the negative effects of Wal-Mart, Olsson berates Wal-Mart’s unfair treatment towards employees and the unlivable wages that the world’s largest retailer provides while Mallaby defends Wal-Mart’s actions with reasonable statistics.
Besides all the points that I have stated, Wal-Mart has had to pay fines due to breaking Child Labor laws and Illegal Immigrant laws; fines up to $11.5 million for just those two types of laws. Wal-Mart is not good for this economy, for the people, and the company, in a whole, is criminal. If the people let Wal-Mart stay on the track it is on, the United States will not have anything but Wal-Marts. Wal-Mart will become a monopoly and put everyone, who started with something more than greed, out-of-business.
Walmart is a multi-billion dollar retail industry that hires thousands of employees a year. Over the last decade Walmart, there has been some speculation that Walmart discriminates against women. They employ 815,000 women, which is 57 percent of its U.S. workforce (Reed). Over 2,000 women from each of 48 states have filed legal complaints against Walmart and the company is said to have a history of unfair treatment of these female employees by under paid and how there are so many lawsuits against them given few opportunities for advancement (Hines). I selected this topic because after doing some research I discovered some shocking information about how Walmart supposedly treats their female employees and how there are so many lawsuits filed against them. This relates to my field of study because it shows what goes on internally between a company and its employees and how a company’s decision affects their employees. This also relates to my field of study because it an example of what occurs sometimes within a company and that is legal action from employee to the employer.
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...
It creates an environment where it is difficult for retailers to grow their business. According to Jia (2005), Wal-Mart destroyed 50-70 percent of small discount retailers from 1988 to 1997 (Basker 191). It shows that Wal-Mart wreck small-scale business within few years. As Wal-Mart is a big multinational company and operates on the much bigger platform. It does not require any sponsor's but on the flip side, the small-scale business needs funds and sources to establish themselves in the market. Between 1963—one year after the first Wal-Mart store opened in Rogers, Arkansas—and 2002, the quantity of single-store retailers in the United States declined by 55 percent (Basker 178). Overall, taking the evidence into consideration it is seen that the entrance of Wal-Mart in the business world has a serious impact these minor businesses. In a Pew Research Center (2005) study, 19 percent of respondents with a Wal-Mart store in their general vicinity felt that it had a negative impact locally, and 24 percent of all respondents suspected that Wal-Mart was awful for the nation (Basker 178). This research shows that Wal-Mart has negative effects on both locally and for the country as well. Wal-Mart makes a hard-focused condition. Each new Wal-Mart store diminishes nearby contenders' piece of the pie and profit edges and makes a few organizations close (Basker 190). Wal-Mart creates a
Over the years, Wal-Mart has had several HR issues including the following three: wage law violations and the exploitation of workers, discrimination (gender, age, disability), and poor and unsafe working conditions.
When it is comes to big named discount stores, most citizens think of Wal-Mart. They have everything, they’re cheap, and there’s probably one on every corner. Sounds like heaven, right? Walmart has in fact been ranked the worst in shopper satisfaction. The list of reasons can go on and on, but here is a list of things of why Walmart should be hated by everyone; it is overpopulated, parking is almost nonexistent, and prices are actually not always cheaper. Walmart indeed is not the happiest place on Earth, and certainly does not make shoppers lives better.
Few companies create such controversy as Walmart has done with its approach to maintaining low costs for everyday items. People either love Walmart because of this approach to keeping prices down or hate it due to the effects it has on the economy. There are a lot of arguments surrounding the minimum wage and employee rights at Walmart. There seems to always be a news article about some employee protest about the wages or how they are treated. Walmart is viewed as an enormous firm that does not take care of its employees because of its minimum wage, treatment of its employees, and how it deals with lawsuits.
Walmart employees have begun to file law suits against Walmart due to their mistreatment. Thousands of Walmart employees have complained about their wages being determined by their gender. More often than not, men have a higher pay than women working at Walmart. According to Congressional Digest article "Pay Equity Overview.", men got paid $49,398 against $37,791 which was women’s pay in 2012.In the article it claims that there are around 5,000 legal proceedings against Walmart each year. Which leaves costumers with bad reputation against Walmart for their poor treatment on their employees. Walmart employees often have a difficult time with their health care coverage provided by their employer. It was announced that Walmart 30,000 part-time employees and family members have lost their health care coverage stated in "Walmart to End Health Coverage for 30,000 Part-Time Workers." by Tabuchi, Hiroko. Walmart employees are often asked to work overtime and often won’t get paid for their extra hours they worked. In the article “Wal-Mart Stores hit by lawsuit that alleges it broke overtime laws with temp agency” released by the Canadian Press states that the law suit against Walmart was filed to the U.S. District Court of Illinois Eastern Division in Chicago. The law suit concerns workers that don’t get paid the overtime they work, there have been around 200
Taking into account the oppositional side of Walmart having a downfall on the economy there is evidential support to be considered. An argument opposing Walmart is that job opportunities are decreasing. “In an economy that cares for the health and well-being of every person and doesn't permit poverty, there can be no corporation that asks people—as Walmart does—to trade "low prices" today for the inability to have a job, purchase the necessities of life, live in a safe community or count on a healthy environment tomorrow.(In Cooperation 2006).” Many may a...