In “Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson, she finds the truth about how Wal-Mart treats its customers and more importantly how the million dollar company treats its employees. In this essay, Olsson strongly believes that Wal-Mart keeps its stores understaffed and their employees overworked and underpaid, with minimal options for reasonable benefits.…
The film makes use of firsthand information from interviews conducted by Greenwald on individuals that have faced the impact of Wal-Mart’s reign. Since its establishment, Watson had promised customers and workers great services by offering goods at low prices. According to the film, Wal-Mart has established its retail business in local areas where large retailers are not available to avoid competition. As a result, they drew attention of many small community consumers because of their cheaper prices and variety of differentiated products. This has caused havoc to small business, which have been wiped out because they lack the potential to compete with this retail giant. Lack of competition has enabled Wal-Mart to dominate its business at low prices because they have captured all customers (Fishman 23).…
The article “Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson is the detailed explanation of how Wal-Mart treats their customers and more importantly how the million dollar company treats their employees. Olson kicks off the article by telling a story about Jennifer McLaughlin, who is a twenty-two year old Wal-Mart employee. She goes on to explain the daily work tasks that she completes. She complains how Wal-Mart runs their business, and also how terrible the company treats her as an employee. Jennifer is forced to work over time, is underpaid and also treated unfairly. Employees say that they cannot say no after being asked to work off the clock. The workers at Wal-Mart also started to try to create a union which highly concerned Wal-Mart. A union at Wal-Mart was never formed due to the company’s anti-union group that was started and created by Wal-Mart. In ten separate cases, Nation Labor Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogation of workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters (Olsson). The issue of creating a union was not the only concern of the Wal-Mart workers. They also were concerned with how they would pay for health insurance. In Jennifer’s case, for her to have Wal-Mart covered health insurance it would cost her a $85 dollar chunk out of her pay check. The work force does not understand how a company that is account for 2 percent of America’s domestic product and has had 200 billion dollars in sales cannot give their hard working employees good health insurance. This article does make Wal-Mart sound like the bad guy, but I do not think that is completely true. Wal-Mart is running a business, and sometimes running a business means cutting resources.…
Mallaby proposes that when one looks to the savings being made for shoppers to salaries of their employees, of course the most important aspect is the shoppers, not merely that, but employee treatment is debatable. “Wal-Mart’s pay and benefits can be made to look good or bad depending on which other firms you compare them to” Mallaby says, using 8,000 applications received at a newly opened warehouse in Arizona as evidence for the stores high appeal despite the spreading of word to suggest that the pay is undesirable— unjust. Attempting to display fairness, he offers a hypothetical acceptance of an estimated loss to employee earnings; however, he…
Olsson argues that Wal-Mart employees are underpaid and cannot survive with the paychecks they receive from the corporation. She points out that “[g]iven its staggering size and rapid expansion, Wal-Mart increasingly sets the standard for wages and benefits throughout the U.S. economy.” Olsson quotes Greg Denier who says, “Americans can’t live on a Wal-Mart paycheck,” (Olsson 608). The average paycheck for an hourly worker at Wal-Mart is under $20,000 while the corporation brings in over $6.5 billion in profits. Olsson suggests that the average employee of Wal-Mart struggles living on the hourly wages at Wal-Mart with very few benefits (608). On the other hand, Mallaby expresses that these same Wal-Mart employees that are receiving low wages are receiving Wal-Marts’ every day low prices as a benefit. He accompanies this idea by saying, “Retail workers may take home less pay, but their purchasing power probably still grows thanks to Wal-Mart’s low prices” (Mallaby 622). He agrees that Wal-Mart retail workers do make less money, but also points out the benefit of the low prices that Wal-Mart has to offer on a daily basis and says, “[t]hese gains are especially important to poor and moderate-income families” (Mallaby 621). Wal-Mart is a superstore that drives its prices down lower than its competitors in order to make the best deals on products for their consumers,…
Walmart is the world’s largest retailer and private sector employer. They employ over 2.2 million employees. With tons of money, locations, and power, they have been the target for thousands of law suits. As we all know, Walmart has replaced thousands of mom and pop businesses by carrying the same items at much lower prices. They not only made businesses shut down due to undercutting competitor prices but they also made lots of people lose well-paying jobs in the process only to pay employees poverty wages and benefits and encouraged them seek government assistance in order to supplement their incomes (Logan, 2014). Walmart experienced many external social pressures but the one that’s being addressed in this paper focuses on the external social pressures they received due their effect on the economy. Since Walmart plays such an important role in our economy many people look to them for help and hope. However, Walmart not only failed the economy by not providing well-paying jobs they also provide unsafe…
When you hear the words low prices it is hard not to think of Wal-Mart. The company that revolutionized discount shopping. But what happens behind the scenes? How is it that the world’s largest retail chain can offer so many deals? In the last 20 years the anti-Walmart campaign seems to continuously be on the minds of many. Sebastian Mallaby and Karen Olsson share radically different views on the ethics of the Wal-Mart Corporation. In “Up Against Wal-Mart” we are forced to believe that Wal mart is a vicious company that shows no remorse when firing employees and cutting their benefits. The author produces factual information and eyewitness accounts pointing to these horrible deeds that the large corporation run by money hungry businessmen have cheated many employees out of proper wages, proper benefits and even their jobs. While Sebastian Mallaby depicts Wal-Mart like the average American company. In his article “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” He states that while Wal-Mart is responsible for many questionable deeds, they are merely doing what they have to in order to survive.…
The essays “Up Against Wal-Mart” by Karen Olsson and “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really” by Sebastian Mallaby portray Wal-Mart to two completely different lights. Olsson shames Wal-Mart for its poor health benefits, the meager pay Wal-Mart employees receive, and the managers who purposely fail to schedule enough workers. Mallaby, on the other hand, commends Wal-Mart on how much money the franchise saves customers.…
2. Lynn, Barry. "The Case for Breaking up Wal-Mart." Harper 's Magazine. 25 July 2006. 3 Nov. 2006 http://www.alternet.org/workplace/39251/.…
In 1988 Sam Walton founder of the greatest discount store of all time was awarded a title. Walton’s name was found in Times Magazine as most influential person to have lived in the 20th century. The founder of Walmart’s goal was to achieve having a store that provided“ a one stop shopping center, with an unlimited supply of product at unbeatable prices”. What Walton failed to foresee, was the destruction and, negative effects that his business would bring all over the globe. Is it possible that the biggest company in the world could bring harm to there own employees? The answer is yes; they would and continue to do so. They come into cities affecting a large amount of members in the communities; right after settling in they do a great deal of damage. Walmart is a supermarket that changed the industry of retail, though it ended up ruining the lives of thousands of hard working citizens. These people are Americans who want to keep a job but have to endure inexcusable treatment from Walmart. Employees have been treated so poorly that lawsuits and protestors around the world have come to stand outside of the nearest Walmart in town to protest. The negative affect of these huge supermarkets led to the spiral of many great pharmacy’s, clothing, hardware stores etc. These types of stores went down the drain as soon as “Big Walmart” came into town. Since the existence of Walmart it has challenged communities big or small to stay open and keep there employee’s wages down and there cost of merchandise down, leaving the other store owners with no profit forcing them to close down. This is the only way Walmart has operated and that’s lowering cost and making sure all other surrounding competitors shut down. Some do not speak up because as a consumer, they do not see a reason to why they should complain if what they are buying is a complete bargain. That way of thinking keeps many unemployed and many Walmart workers receiving the same…
Criticisms of Walmart’s effect on small retailers fall flat because of Americans’ role in that effect. Consumption is the only democratic component of the corporate world: small retailers fail because Americans choose Walmart. Walmart provides cheaper, better, more accessible services than its competition. While competing stores’ closings produce touching hard-luck stories, the shift to Walmart is beneficial for society, because Walmart is much more efficient at every stage of its business. The benefits of this efficiency are less personal and more broadly spread than the costs to smaller competitors, but such dissemination of value demonstrates one of the best qualities of Walmart – its egalitarianism. Walmart provides a good that is accessible to virtually all Americans. The 2006 book The Walmart Effect estimates that 97% of Americans live within twenty-five miles of a Walmart, and Walmart’s low prices assure that the store is also economically accessible. As long as consumers continue to choose Walmart (for understandable reasons), the onus is on small retailers to find better ways to compete.…
Wal-Mart operates as a distributor, and retailer of consumer goods. Wal-Mart's history is one of innovation, leadership and success. It started with a single store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 and has grown to what is now the world's largest - and arguably, the most emulated - retailer. Some researchers refer to Wal-Mart as the industry trendsetter. 1.4 million Employees worldwide, Wal-Mart's workforce is now larger than that of GM, Ford, GE, and IBM combined. Wal-Mart has enormously affected local communities and US economy. What role does Wal-Mart play in our society? Does Wal-Mart represent the American dream or is it just a monstrous capitalist empire? In order to examine the matter from a sociologist's point of view one…
Robert Greenwald uses a strong appeal to ethos, a slippery road argument, and a text track to bring attention to his audience about Wal-Mart. He establishes his argument by first presenting a claim made by the Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and then showing the contrary to that claim with many examples from real people. Through these arguments the audience can determine that Wal-Mart is simply a bad company and they should stop spending their money there.…
Walmart is the largest retailer in the universe and has the most jobs in the private sector currently. They presently have more than 2.2 million people employed worldwide. With a large amount of money, stores, and influence, they have been part of thousands of legal issues. Over the past 10 years, Walmart has put out of business a number of individuals by having the same products at a lower price. They have not only shut down a number of businesses due to the undercutting of competitor prices but they also made a great deal of people lose higher paying jobs during their expansion to pay their employees very low wages with marginal benefits (Logan 2014). Walmart has seen a great deal of external social pressures however we will focus on the external social pressures they have encountered due to their direct effect on the economy. Since Walmart is a big factor in regards to the economy a number of people look to them for assistance in acquiring a job. Nonetheless, Walmart has impacted the economy by not offering well-paying jobs to employees and having very…
As the largest retailer in America, Walmart has been called “one of the most impactful organizations in the history of humanity” (Roberts 1); however, we must ask ourselves what type of impact Walmart is making. Because they are such a large corporation, Walmart has the power and ability to greatly influence our society either for the good or for the bad, and most people agree that their impression on our current society is a negative one. There is lots of controversy over the ethical and economic repercussions our country faces because of Walmart. It is evident to most people that Walmart negatively impacts communities, treats employees unfairly, and facilitates child labor in American and abroad.…