Wal-Mart And Social Responsibility Analysis

Wal-Mart and Social Responsibility
Everyone can recognize the yellow smiley face, paired with a promise of “everyday low prices”. One of the most recognized symbols along with Starbuck’s Siren logo and The McDonald’s Arches, Wal-Mart’s smiley face and promise has been directed towards American families who are on a budget. With 3,700 stores in The United States, and employing over two million people, Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the world (1). Because of all the influence Wal-Mart has, it is in the position to make a difference in many communities within The United States. One major influence it has is the standard of working conditions around the world. Unfortunately, Wal-Mart’s working standards are very low, so low that
The underpaid and poor working conditions have all made headlines. Wal-Mart argues that every new Wal-Mart offers 300 new jobs according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (5). The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union also states Wal-Mart offers its employees a comprehensive benefits package that provides cash up-front to pay for adequate medical expenses and incentives to help them plan for retirement. By doing this Wal-Mart appears to look good and pretends like they are helping out communities. In reality they are not helping as much as they could or as much as they should. Wal-Mart is able to have such low prices because of the wage they pay their employees. Helping people save money and support their families is an altercation for their own workers living below the poverty line. Wal-Mart considers full-time to be only 34 hours, paying an hourly wage of $8.81 an hour. In the United States the official poverty line for a family of four, two adults and two children, is $22,118 according to The U.S. Census Bureau (3). For a household made up of only two adults the poverty line is $15,063. With this being said, if a Wal-Mart employee were to work 34 hours a week every week of the year for $8.81 an hour, it would still leave the employee only making $15,576 a year before taxes reducing the true amount of money earned. This leaves hundreds of
In 2010 Mike Duke the CEO of Wal-Mart made 35 million dollars (2). One way Wal-Mart keeps their workers from asking for raises and arguing for fair wages are by disallowing employees to unionize. Because Wal-Mart does not have as many working standards to follow it leads to more unfair hours, poor working conditions, and poorer health benefits. This helps them have more control. Wal-Mart has been known to keep heavy surveillance on managers and has threatened to close stores costing hundreds of people jobs if word of unionizing is spread (6). One example of this was in February of 2000 in Jacksonville Texas. After workers in the meat department voted to join a union Wal-Mart shut down the department and moved to pre-packaged meat. During job orientation some Wal-Mart stores have their new employees watch a video about why unionizing is not good and unneeded. Disallowing unions is interfering with “The Beautiful”. Unions are good because they hold employers to ethics such as minimum wage and working conditions which have both been discussed. It does not meet “The Beautiful” is expressed through the search for excellence and the quest for perfection (1 pg. 6). An anti-union stance does not express that a company is aiming for perfection. It does not express the excellence of the company but rather a company controlling workers through