Walmart History Essay

Argument of Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is an international discount department store chain operating in many towns and cities in multiple countries. Wal-Mart’s founder, Samuel Walton, “decided that small-town populations would welcome, and make profitable, large discount shopping stores” (Healy 493).Therefore, he started to build the largest discount department stores and opened the first Wal-Mart discount store in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962 (Healy 493). Wal-Mart sells many different kinds of products, such as clothes, food, books, furniture, and many more. Wal-Mart has been growing very fast. “In 1979, there were 276 Wal-Mart stores in 11 states. Sales had gone from $44 million in 1970 to $1.25 billion in 1979. Wal-Mart became the fastest
“The Target Corporation, originally the Dayton Dry Goods Company and later the Dayton Hudson Corporation, is the second-largest discount retailer in the United States, with Wal-Mart being the largest.” (“Target through the year”) Target’s founder, John Dayton, founded the business in 1902 and opened the first Target store in 1962 in Roseville, Minnesota. “In 2013, Target expanded into Canada and now operates nearly 100 locations through its Canadian subsidiary.” (“Target through the year”) Also, Target has 361,000 employees in 2013. (“Target through the
Although Wal-Mart’s wage conditions look better than Target, according to the Report, “Target sales associate team members make an average of $8.34 per hour, whereas sales associates at Wal-Mart make an average of $8.86 per hour. In addition, cashiers at Target make $0.41 less per hour than Wal-Mart cashiers, who earn on average $8.51 per hour” (O’Reilly), this is the only factor where Wal-Mart is better than Target. Based on this information, Wal-Mart’s incumbency rate should be higher; instead, Target is a more popular with job seekers than Wal-Mart. Since Wal-Mart has faced a torrent of unpaid wage lawsuits, this factor causes them to lose employees trust, and therefore people do not believe that Wal-Mart is a good workplace. CBSNews reported, “Wal-Mart is being slapped with a lawsuit that claims that the largest retailer and its staffing agencies broke federal minimum wage and overtime laws by requiring temporary workers to appear early for work, stay late to complete work and work through lunches and breaks without compensation” Wal-Mart exploits employees and creates unequal treatment for laborers. This behavior disappoints employees, and it is clear that Wal-Mart is not the better company to work for. The biggest disparity between Wal-Mart and Target is Target does not take money from employees to make more profit. Moreover, Target offers employee bonuses, good health care, and a retirement pension. “The