Walmart Living Wage

A potential benefit of advocating for a living wage at the federal level is that a living wage would actually be put into effect. With living wages, workers will be able to buy the basic needs for survival, which include; money for rent, food, health insurance, and other major expenses. The potential downside to advocating for a living wage at the federal level is that small businesses may go out of business and companies will have to cut back on their staff in order to pay for the wage increase. Moreover, the risks that someone like Craig Jelinek is assuming by speaking out for a living wage is that he fears that workers will rebel for better rights and pay like Walmart workers did on Black Friday in 2012 (Eisenberg, Goodall, & Trethewey,
2014, p. 158).

He knows that employees deserve to make a livable wage, therefore, he is speaking out to create awareness that wages are low and that changes need to be made not only for the benefit of the employees but the benefit of the company as well.
Essentially, Walmart follows a pro-profit position, while Costco follows a pro-people position.
Craig Jelinek the CEO of Costco knows that “profitability is essential to the success of nearly all organizations, but it should not be maximized at the expense of other equally important social needs, including living wages, sustained development, quality of work life, and self-determination” (Eisenberg, Goodall, & Trethewey, 2014, p. 158). He believes that people should be the number one priority of a company and everything else will successfully follow suit. A business that is people oriented recognizes and responds to the many ethical obligations that coincide with running a business. Since Craig Jelinek wants to promote a living wage he still needs to ensure the security of his employees and stockholders. However, the fact that he is advocating for a living wage reinforces his ethical obligation. He is ensuring that his workers make enough money to live off of which customers see and intrigues them to want to spend their money at Costco to support their pro-people stance instead of going to Walmart who supports a pro-business stance. In a result, Costco makes more money because of the increase in business, which keeps its stockholders content. Overall, companies pushing to provide their employees with a living wage could lead to more positives than negatives because people know that the success of a business should not be a priority over the well-being of its
workers.
References
Eisenberg, E. M., Goodall, H. L., & Trethewey, A. (2014). Organizational communication:
Balancing creativity and constraint.