Walmart Case StudyEssay Preview: Walmart Case StudyReport this essayMission StatementThe purpose of this paper is to further inform Wal-Mart Watch on several issues Wal-Mart needs reformation/change in. You have a vested interest in how Wal-Mart operates and this paper should point out major flaws in the company and then an analysis of how to rectify these issues. The issues deal with the economic, small business, and employee wrongdoings by Wal-Mart.
Wal-MartThe first Wal-Mart, opened in Benton County, Arkansas in 1962 (Slater 48). By the time the company went public in 1969 it had 18 stores throughout Arkansas, Missouri, and Oklahoma. The new company slowly expanded farther and farther from its original location. Robert Slater states that by 1998, Wal-Mart had approximately 2400 stores in all 50 states and about 800,000 employees in the United States. Wal-Mart is the largest retailer in the United States as well as the world. This superstore operates in over thirteen countries (Walmart). Wal-Mart opens up discount centers and super centers offering groceries and other goods.
Walmart is the largest private employer and owns and operates the largest trucking fleet in the world. For a company that has been around since 1962, that is a huge feat to accomplish in that small amount of time. Nobody would have thought many years back that Wal-Mart would be as successful as it is now, other than the founder himself, Sam Walton. Mr. Walton knew that by the year 2000 Wal-Mart would be the largest employer in the world and by that same year would have done $100 billion dollars in sales(Walmart). This feat has not been accomplished by any other retailer anywhere throughout the world. Some people would say that Wal-Mart has been extremely beneficial to the economy, while others would say that it has destroyed the economy by driving out other business. There are facts to support both cases.
There are many reasons to why The Wal-Mart Corporation to come off as a great American company. But by digging deeper, one can see how Wal-Mart has driven other companies out of business, forced suppliers to lower their prices, and even cut back on wages and benefits that they offer their employees.
The image that most people have when picturing rural America is small towns, nice quant little farms, and family owned shops and restaurants. Most picture a town where people live their whole lives to grow up and raise a family and eventually retire. However, most of what we used to see is gone, and now replaced by that large blue sign, and those “low, low prices”: Wal-Mart, a staple in most every American town. This could be beneficial to the town by providing jobs for hundreds, and it even bringing some conveniences that a town may never have had before. The consequences of it usually include the closing of downtown shops that have been there for fifty years and farmers having to shut down their farms due to loss of sales in their corn to Wal-Mart, which would be cheaper to the consumer.
Wal-Mart has a big affect on small businesses and the “mom and pop” stores. Activists say mom and pop stores make towns unique and Wal-Mart is killing this concept, since Wal-Mart began moving into additional retail areas, for instance groceries, clothes, and flowers. Why go to the friendly mom and pop when money to support ones family can be saved by going to Wal-Mart? Bonnie Neisius, owner of a UPS franchise in Las Vegas, mentioned that she has watched businesses around her drop left and right since Wal-Mart has moved into the heart of the shopping center. Neisus states that she is personally “probably down 45 percent. I just dont get the foot traffic anymore.” Richard Moe, president of the trust in Neisius UPS store, describes his version of what Wal-Mart is doing to local businesses and mom and pop stores. “We know the effects that these superstores have. They tend to suck the economic and social life out of these downtowns, many of which whither and die as a result. I think it will drastically affect the character of the town. (Pearlstein)”
The Wal-Mart Corporation hires more than one million workers in the United States. This is far more than any other private company can and will hire (Lichtenstein). The company plans to hire over 800 thousand more workers in the next five years. Wal-Mart has many negative affects on labor markets, however, due to the increasing of average efficiency in the retail department. This means that fewer workers are needed per sale and to keep the store running efficiently, thus fewer jobs will be available for people to apply and be hired for. Although those stats are staggering because of the number of people being hired each year in total, so many would question if Wal-Mart is really opening more jobs than they are killing? All growth and productivity in the retail sector has been due to the reallocation of workers because of net entry of establishments. Wal-Mart is an important key to this process because, due to the copying by other smaller retailers of Wal-Marts efficient but job killing style of work, increasing number of stores will choose this method as well which means decreasing employment in those stores also. Wal-Mart is hiring many people, yet costing a lot of jobs because of their low cost style.
A New York Times article states that in May 2004, after much debate by supporters against this structure, Chicagos city council came to a vote because of all the lobbying being done to stop Wal-Marts practices. The city council allowed Wal-Mart to build one of there stores near the West Side (Goldman). Goldman goes on to say “When Englewood voters went to the polls in April 2004, they voted to oppose Wal-Marts initiative by an overwhelming margin of 60.6 percent to 39.3 percent.” Although Wal-Mart may be rejected in Englewood, unfortunately many other cities and towns will still be approved by their governments for Wal-Marts and they will continue to be built. This is a growing problem and will continue unless something is done to stop the growth of this giant retailer.
Wal-Marts wrongdoings begin with the poor treatment of women. With more and more women entering the workplace, issues involving their treatment have become a current hotbed in the media. Wal-Mart currently employs nearly three quarters of a million women. In the U.S. alone in 2005 there were sixty-eight million women who were either looking for work or were currently working. This means that females at Wal-Mart make up almost one percent of all women who are in this countries workforce. Recently much attention by the media has been given to the way female associates at Wal-Mart are treated and rewarded in comparison to their male counterparts. In 2001 men earned around 4.5% to 5.6% more than women doing similar
The Wal-Mart Gender Gap is an ongoing problem, and the number of women in the U.S. workforce as of FY 2011 is currently 9.9% female, a figure that has been trending downward in recent years. At Wal-Mart’s current rate of 1.1 million women are employed by a Wal-Mart employee. At the same time it’s less than half of Wal-Mart workforce. Furthermore there is a growing concern among leaders of the industry (and on the left) about how to do more for women. According to an online survey by The Women’s Campaign for the Workplace conducted by the National Women’s Council in May 2011, 1.1% of men and 3.0% of women, respectively, had never worked at the store. Women are only one-quarter of the workforce in the U.S. Women make up 18.6% of all Wal-Mart employees and are almost two thirds of all sales employees, and 2.3% of the company workforce. It is an outdated and unjustified use of women to drive an industrial shift. Unfortunately many of our women cannot afford to pay their bills when they have the choice to work outside the home. A new report from the Women’s Campaign to Save the Home website examines a much-needed shift across industries to change behavior and create work spaces for women and their families. Women are in close contact with their husbands, sisters, daughters, and mothers during the day so they see what they need and be satisfied. But once a single woman has found work outside the home, she does not feel comfortable talking about herself at all. Women are seen in a totally different light during all three day hours. As a result the idea of being a good mother at home takes on new meaning for our communities, women in the industry are making drastic changes to their socialization and behaviors. For this reason we are calling upon people from the left, which promotes an unhealthy, sexist, and heteronormative style of parenting, and other women’s groups to join us. We can continue to engage women in the workplace and engage and challenge those who will break the cycle of discrimination, sexism, and the lack of equality, by creating gender diverse and meaningful work spaces, using empowering social media to educate and connect, and by empowering women and our communities through our political and policy stances and policies. We can also build on recent initiatives of the National Women’s Coalition for Women’s Leadership (NWCCW), which was created to promote equal employment and paid maternity leave. All these positive initiatives demonstrate an incredible vision for the workplace and the workplace is a great place to start. I want to make sure that I am not the only one advocating for change, but the only one that will give a better life to women. We cannot stop talking about the things that women