Walmart Warehouse Workers
Assessment 3- Walmart warehouse workers strike for workplace safety
Introduction
Wal-Mart Stores, is a retail chain known for giving purchasers products at greatly low costs and. ‘Sam Walton’ is the founder of Walmart. The first Walmart store opened in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, they were committed to having any kind of effect in the lives of their customers. Walmart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. The company is consider the world 's largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2014, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Today, Walmart operates in 27 countries around the …show more content…
world (Gunda, 2011). Walmart helps people around the world save money and live their life better anytime and anywhere no matter in retail stores, online and through their mobile devices. Each week, more than 245 million customers and members visit Walmart 11,000 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. With fiscal year 2013 sales of approximately $466 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide.
Walmart has a long history of evading the law, abusing its workers, and suppressing strikes through illegal means. In 2013, the Labour Department 's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) uncovered "unacceptable" safety hazards to employees at the Rochester store in New York. Walmart was discovered “repeat and serious” health and safety violations in their workplace. During September, 2013, workers employed by a southern California Walmart subcontractor are the most recent group of labourers gathered for the opposition retail giant to launch a protest for their rights. They went for strike in order to let Walmart customers know about the conditions they and 85,000 warehouse workers are facing and requesting Walmart to take responsibilities over the dangerous conditions of their workplace (Cambron,2012).
Walmart focus on saving money was leading it to make unrealistic demands of local managers, particularly with regard to payroll, and this pressure would eventually lead to serious trouble (Frank, 2006). In fact, Walmart pay only $8 per hour to their workers, which means approximately $250 per week and $12000 per year. Additionally, they hardly access to clean water, working under scorching heat that reaches well over 100 degrees which the heat and pollutants of the workplace has made the breath those workers inhale can cause them vomit and bleed from the nose, regular breaks are not given and lack of properly functioning equipment. Without doubt, Walmart’s unsafe workplace always cause their warehouse workers injured very commonly (Cambron, 2012). These has obviously show that Walmart did not embrace ethics in the workplace. Mother Jones reports that, “In 10 separate cases, the National Labour Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters.” Whoever complaints to the office about the unsafe working conditions will face intense retaliation from the management such as get fire, bully, it’s all because of they’re fighting for their dignity. There’s an example happened in couple of months ago, a previous Walmart’s worker David Fields was fired from his job as a forklift operator at a Walmart warehouse in Hammond, Ind. He said that "I was fired for retaliation, for trying to make my life better.” This has obviously shown that Walmart were not taking responsibility towards the workers safety (Blanchard, 2014).
Ethical behaviour is that which is accepted to be ‘good’, ‘right’, and ‘proper’ as opposed to ‘bad’, ‘wrong’, or ‘improper’ in the context of the governing moral code (Davidson et al., 2011) .
Besides, it means the behaviour that is appropriate. It is based on morals and choosing the right and good. Workplace ethics involve developing an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for everyone. “Ethical business is good business” is a classic quote which can be explained a business is good when they practice ethical behaviour and involves demonstrating respect for key moral principles and those moral principles tend to be very important for a corporation which include honesty, dignity, equality, fairness, diversity and also individual right. An ethical workplace strives to conduct business in a manner that is beneficial to owners, employees and customers. Walmart is lack of ethical behaviour because in order to minimize costs, Walmart increase company’s profits by driving down costs any way possible which is of not providing a proper and safe workplace to their workers. Besides, paying the lowest wages to the workers that can’t even let them to live properly and let the workers work under extremely bad condition by not improving it. When leaders say they are ethical, but reward employees who break the law to get business, it demonstrates to employees that profits are more important than integrity, and they will act accordingly (Gale, 2012). Walmart is not paying their workers enough …show more content…
to support their families or to have health care. Additionally, they treat their workers only as a means which according to Immanuel Kant, their workers are like slaves, or literally tools to get the work done, they are not valued and respected as human beings with their own lives to live and they are being forced to work and don’t get equal pay at last and subjected themselves in the dangerous working circumstances which will strongly affect their health condition. Moreover, Walmart did not respect the human dignity of their workers due to they did not provide a safe workplace and not valuing their workers.
Conclusion
The problem to discuss is about Walmart are that Walmart does not embrace both ethical behaviour in the workplace and Corporate Social Responsibilities. They provide very poor treatment to their warehouse workers by paying low wages and working under poor working conditions. But the employer don’t allow them to complaint about the conditions of the workplace if not they will face intense retaliation from the management. Thus, cause the warehouse workers strike for their workplace safety. Anyhow, what the workers want is just to get a better workplace that can ensure their life safety and health condition but not an unsafe workplace that always cause them injured and inhaling the pollutants air that will cause them vomit and bleed from the nose.
Consequently, Walmart need to practice the good management practice of Corporate Social Responsibilities which can be defined as an obligation of the organization to act in ways that serve both its own interests and the interests of its many external stakeholders. Ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility is an increasingly phenomenon. Under Corporate Social Responsibility, Walmart have the responsibility to serve interests of their stakeholders which comprise their workers. Under managerial performance which emphasis on satisfaction helps focus attention on quality of work life (QWL) which has mentioned a high QWL workplace expresses a true respect for people at work by offering such things as fair pay, safe working conditions, protection of individual rights (Davidson et al., 2011). Walmart need practice this theory as well to provide fair pay, safe working condition to the warehouse workers and protect their workers ‘rights. According to Freeman, a company should “keep employees satisfied with their morale high because employees are innovation and idea driven’’. Walmart should extend their fiduciary duty to include their employees’ in order build trust, unity and company spirit in order to succeed. For a company to build a socially acceptable business, that business itself need to act ethically to look after its own interest as well as the society. Thence it is important because as a company build a responsible business, at the same time they build sustainable business.
Recommendations
The key challenges now Walmart faces is the serious problems workers strike for unsafe working conditions and people found out Walmart provide "unacceptable" safety hazards and extremely low wages to workers which have been violating workers’ dignity, human right, health and safety. Walmart cannot ignore these serious problems that they’re facing, which take place, and must improve by providing a better workplace towards warehouse workers, pay them a fair wages, as profit shouldn’t be the single purpose of Walmart. In my point of view, under the contemporary workplace, my recommendation would be Walmart need to protect the human rights of their workers as workplace concerns include equal employment, opportunity, equity of compensation and benefits, job security and occupational health and safety as I strongly believed that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and the workers have the right to equal pay for equal work and they also have the basic rights to strike and speak out for the protection of their own interests. Respect for human dignity by creating a safe workplace for their workers. Besides, respect for basic rights of their workers which is protects rights of workers to avoid any threats to safety, health and living standards. Walmart might also need to pursue an accommodative strategy that is a strategy used when a company chooses to accept responsibility for certain problems and attempts to address the concerns of various stakeholders (Baren, n.d). This approach will helps Walmart to accepts social responsibility and tries to satisfy the prevailing economic, legal and ethical performance criteria by improving their warehouse conditions, ensuring the safety and health condition of their workers and pay them for a living wages that minimum ethically required an organisation to do so.
(1534 words)
References
Blanchard, N. (2014). Labor protesters rally at Wal-Mart for workplace safety. [online] Medill reports- Chicago. Available at: http://Labor protesters rally at Wal-Mart for workplace safety [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Finegan,J (1994) ‘The Impact of Personal Values on Judgments of Ethical Behaviour in the Workplace’,
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 13, No. 9 (Sep., 1994), pp. 747-755
Facer II, R. L. and Bradbury, M. D. 2005. ‘Practical Strategies for Increasing Ethical Behavior in the Workplace’, Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government, p. 257.
Frank, T.
(2006). A Brief History of Walmart. [online] Reclaim Democracy!. Available at: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/brief-history-of-walmart/ [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Johnson, C. E. 2007. Ethics in the workplace. Thousand Oaks, Calif., SAGE Publications.
Kunichoff, Y. (2014). Today’s Workplace » Wal Mart. [online] Todaysworkplace.org. Available at: http://www.todaysworkplace.org/tag/wal-mart/ [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Moore,S, Jie Wen,J , (2008) "Business ethics? A global comparative study on corporate sustainability approaches", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 4 Iss: 1/2, pp.172 – 184
Rossana, C. 2012. Walmart warehouse workers strike for workplace safety » peoplesworld. [online] Available at: http://peoplesworld.org/walmart-warehouse-workers-strike-for-workplace-safety/ [Accessed: 6 Apr 2014].
"WALMART", 2012, Advertising Age, vol. 83, no. 12, pp. 2.
Woods,P, John R. Schermerhorn, Chau,S,L, Management, 4th edition, Milton, QLD, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.Workplacefairness.org, (2014). The Good, the Bad, and Wal-Mart. [online] Available at: http://www.workplacefairness.org/reports/good-bad-wal-mart/wal-mart.php [Accessed 13 May.
2014].
Introduction
Wal-Mart Stores, is a retail chain known for giving purchasers products at greatly low costs and. ‘Sam Walton’ is the founder of Walmart. The first Walmart store opened in 1962 in Rogers, Arkansas, they were committed to having any kind of effect in the lives of their customers. Walmart as we know it today evolved from Sam Walton’s goals for great value and great customer service. The company is consider the world 's largest public corporation, according to the Fortune Global 500 list in 2014, the biggest private employer in the world with over two million employees, and is the largest retailer in the world. Today, Walmart operates in 27 countries around the …show more content…
world (Gunda, 2011). Walmart helps people around the world save money and live their life better anytime and anywhere no matter in retail stores, online and through their mobile devices. Each week, more than 245 million customers and members visit Walmart 11,000 stores under 69 banners in 27 countries and e-commerce websites in 10 countries. With fiscal year 2013 sales of approximately $466 billion, Walmart employs 2.2 million associates worldwide.
Walmart has a long history of evading the law, abusing its workers, and suppressing strikes through illegal means. In 2013, the Labour Department 's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) uncovered "unacceptable" safety hazards to employees at the Rochester store in New York. Walmart was discovered “repeat and serious” health and safety violations in their workplace. During September, 2013, workers employed by a southern California Walmart subcontractor are the most recent group of labourers gathered for the opposition retail giant to launch a protest for their rights. They went for strike in order to let Walmart customers know about the conditions they and 85,000 warehouse workers are facing and requesting Walmart to take responsibilities over the dangerous conditions of their workplace (Cambron,2012).
Walmart focus on saving money was leading it to make unrealistic demands of local managers, particularly with regard to payroll, and this pressure would eventually lead to serious trouble (Frank, 2006). In fact, Walmart pay only $8 per hour to their workers, which means approximately $250 per week and $12000 per year. Additionally, they hardly access to clean water, working under scorching heat that reaches well over 100 degrees which the heat and pollutants of the workplace has made the breath those workers inhale can cause them vomit and bleed from the nose, regular breaks are not given and lack of properly functioning equipment. Without doubt, Walmart’s unsafe workplace always cause their warehouse workers injured very commonly (Cambron, 2012). These has obviously show that Walmart did not embrace ethics in the workplace. Mother Jones reports that, “In 10 separate cases, the National Labour Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters.” Whoever complaints to the office about the unsafe working conditions will face intense retaliation from the management such as get fire, bully, it’s all because of they’re fighting for their dignity. There’s an example happened in couple of months ago, a previous Walmart’s worker David Fields was fired from his job as a forklift operator at a Walmart warehouse in Hammond, Ind. He said that "I was fired for retaliation, for trying to make my life better.” This has obviously shown that Walmart were not taking responsibility towards the workers safety (Blanchard, 2014).
Ethical behaviour is that which is accepted to be ‘good’, ‘right’, and ‘proper’ as opposed to ‘bad’, ‘wrong’, or ‘improper’ in the context of the governing moral code (Davidson et al., 2011) .
Besides, it means the behaviour that is appropriate. It is based on morals and choosing the right and good. Workplace ethics involve developing an atmosphere of respect and tolerance for everyone. “Ethical business is good business” is a classic quote which can be explained a business is good when they practice ethical behaviour and involves demonstrating respect for key moral principles and those moral principles tend to be very important for a corporation which include honesty, dignity, equality, fairness, diversity and also individual right. An ethical workplace strives to conduct business in a manner that is beneficial to owners, employees and customers. Walmart is lack of ethical behaviour because in order to minimize costs, Walmart increase company’s profits by driving down costs any way possible which is of not providing a proper and safe workplace to their workers. Besides, paying the lowest wages to the workers that can’t even let them to live properly and let the workers work under extremely bad condition by not improving it. When leaders say they are ethical, but reward employees who break the law to get business, it demonstrates to employees that profits are more important than integrity, and they will act accordingly (Gale, 2012). Walmart is not paying their workers enough …show more content…
to support their families or to have health care. Additionally, they treat their workers only as a means which according to Immanuel Kant, their workers are like slaves, or literally tools to get the work done, they are not valued and respected as human beings with their own lives to live and they are being forced to work and don’t get equal pay at last and subjected themselves in the dangerous working circumstances which will strongly affect their health condition. Moreover, Walmart did not respect the human dignity of their workers due to they did not provide a safe workplace and not valuing their workers.
Conclusion
The problem to discuss is about Walmart are that Walmart does not embrace both ethical behaviour in the workplace and Corporate Social Responsibilities. They provide very poor treatment to their warehouse workers by paying low wages and working under poor working conditions. But the employer don’t allow them to complaint about the conditions of the workplace if not they will face intense retaliation from the management. Thus, cause the warehouse workers strike for their workplace safety. Anyhow, what the workers want is just to get a better workplace that can ensure their life safety and health condition but not an unsafe workplace that always cause them injured and inhaling the pollutants air that will cause them vomit and bleed from the nose.
Consequently, Walmart need to practice the good management practice of Corporate Social Responsibilities which can be defined as an obligation of the organization to act in ways that serve both its own interests and the interests of its many external stakeholders. Ethical behaviour and corporate social responsibility is an increasingly phenomenon. Under Corporate Social Responsibility, Walmart have the responsibility to serve interests of their stakeholders which comprise their workers. Under managerial performance which emphasis on satisfaction helps focus attention on quality of work life (QWL) which has mentioned a high QWL workplace expresses a true respect for people at work by offering such things as fair pay, safe working conditions, protection of individual rights (Davidson et al., 2011). Walmart need practice this theory as well to provide fair pay, safe working condition to the warehouse workers and protect their workers ‘rights. According to Freeman, a company should “keep employees satisfied with their morale high because employees are innovation and idea driven’’. Walmart should extend their fiduciary duty to include their employees’ in order build trust, unity and company spirit in order to succeed. For a company to build a socially acceptable business, that business itself need to act ethically to look after its own interest as well as the society. Thence it is important because as a company build a responsible business, at the same time they build sustainable business.
Recommendations
The key challenges now Walmart faces is the serious problems workers strike for unsafe working conditions and people found out Walmart provide "unacceptable" safety hazards and extremely low wages to workers which have been violating workers’ dignity, human right, health and safety. Walmart cannot ignore these serious problems that they’re facing, which take place, and must improve by providing a better workplace towards warehouse workers, pay them a fair wages, as profit shouldn’t be the single purpose of Walmart. In my point of view, under the contemporary workplace, my recommendation would be Walmart need to protect the human rights of their workers as workplace concerns include equal employment, opportunity, equity of compensation and benefits, job security and occupational health and safety as I strongly believed that all human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights and the workers have the right to equal pay for equal work and they also have the basic rights to strike and speak out for the protection of their own interests. Respect for human dignity by creating a safe workplace for their workers. Besides, respect for basic rights of their workers which is protects rights of workers to avoid any threats to safety, health and living standards. Walmart might also need to pursue an accommodative strategy that is a strategy used when a company chooses to accept responsibility for certain problems and attempts to address the concerns of various stakeholders (Baren, n.d). This approach will helps Walmart to accepts social responsibility and tries to satisfy the prevailing economic, legal and ethical performance criteria by improving their warehouse conditions, ensuring the safety and health condition of their workers and pay them for a living wages that minimum ethically required an organisation to do so.
(1534 words)
References
Blanchard, N. (2014). Labor protesters rally at Wal-Mart for workplace safety. [online] Medill reports- Chicago. Available at: http://Labor protesters rally at Wal-Mart for workplace safety [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Finegan,J (1994) ‘The Impact of Personal Values on Judgments of Ethical Behaviour in the Workplace’,
Journal of Business Ethics, Vol. 13, No. 9 (Sep., 1994), pp. 747-755
Facer II, R. L. and Bradbury, M. D. 2005. ‘Practical Strategies for Increasing Ethical Behavior in the Workplace’, Handbook of Human Resource Management in Government, p. 257.
Frank, T.
(2006). A Brief History of Walmart. [online] Reclaim Democracy!. Available at: http://reclaimdemocracy.org/brief-history-of-walmart/ [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Johnson, C. E. 2007. Ethics in the workplace. Thousand Oaks, Calif., SAGE Publications.
Kunichoff, Y. (2014). Today’s Workplace » Wal Mart. [online] Todaysworkplace.org. Available at: http://www.todaysworkplace.org/tag/wal-mart/ [Accessed 13 May. 2014].
Moore,S, Jie Wen,J , (2008) "Business ethics? A global comparative study on corporate sustainability approaches", Social Responsibility Journal, Vol. 4 Iss: 1/2, pp.172 – 184
Rossana, C. 2012. Walmart warehouse workers strike for workplace safety » peoplesworld. [online] Available at: http://peoplesworld.org/walmart-warehouse-workers-strike-for-workplace-safety/ [Accessed: 6 Apr 2014].
"WALMART", 2012, Advertising Age, vol. 83, no. 12, pp. 2.
Woods,P, John R. Schermerhorn, Chau,S,L, Management, 4th edition, Milton, QLD, John Wiley & Sons Australia Ltd.Workplacefairness.org, (2014). The Good, the Bad, and Wal-Mart. [online] Available at: http://www.workplacefairness.org/reports/good-bad-wal-mart/wal-mart.php [Accessed 13 May.
2014].