Up Against Walmart By Karen Olsson Summary

Disputes With the Wal
In the unstable society that we live in today, Wal-Marts’ affordable prices are eye-catching to the middle class in the United States. One of the biggest debates that come up when discussing Wal-Mart, a global supercenter, is if it really is as friendly and appealing as it appears. In Karen Olssons’ article “Up Against Wal-Mart,” she emphasizes her perception of the poor treatment that the employees receive at Wal-Mart and emphasizes the struggle that the everyday Wal-Mart supercenter employee goes through. Olsson, a senior editor at Texas Monthly, who has written for Slate, the Washington Post, and the New York Times Magazine, opposes the actions of Wal-Mart. In contrast to Olsson, Sebastian Mallaby, a columnist for
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,
In opposition to this argument, Mallaby claims that critics of Wal-Mart are oblivious if they think Wal-Mart is the worst corporation when it comes to the way that employees are treated. He believes that it depends on what other corporations Wal-Mart is compared to and gives an example of this stating that “Wal-Mart opened a store in Glendale, Arizona, last year, it received 8,000applications for 525 jobs,” suggesting that not all people think that Wal-Mart mistreats its employees and that their benefits or wages do seem appealing to many (Mallaby 621). Though Mallaby does not discuss unions, Olsson targets this topic and mentions that Wal-Mart quickly rids of unions in order to keep opposition away. Commenting on the unions at Wal-Mart, Olsson says, “To protect the bottom line Wal-Mart is as aggressive at fighting off unions as it is at cutting costs” (Olsson 615). Wal-Mart has a main goal of fighting costs to make them lower than their competitors; therefore, fighting off unions is of utmost importance to Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart does not want any opposition and does not want to lose to its competitors. Expanding the issue of working conditions to international relations, Mallaby shows how Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, the new anti-Wal-Mart movie circulating among activist groups, exploits the mistreatment of the Chinese workers that work for Wal-Mart.