Wal-Mart Is Bad for America Essay Example for Free

Wal-Mart Is Bad for America Essay Starting out with a single store in Bentonville, Arkansas, Wal-Mart has not stopped expanding. The First Wal-Mart store was opened in 1962 by a Mr. Sam Walton. He opened the store with one intention: sell products people need at the lowest price available. Wal-Mart has since blown up into a globally known and used corporation. Currently, more than fifty percent of all Americans live within five miles of a Wal-Mart store, which is less than a ten mile drive away. Ninety percent of Americans live within fifteen miles of a Wal-Mart. (Fishman, 2006). Wal-Mart is bordering on 9000 locations worldwide including operations in Mexico, United Kingdom, Japan, and India. Wal-Mart is undoubtedly a global powerhouse. This powerhouse is impacting its home country. Wal-Mart affects American businesses and employees. This massive corporation affects the health of the United States. It has many affects as it spreads around the world. â€Å"A century ago, the companies that dominated the global food trade were wholesalers. Today these giants are dwarfed by the supermarkets that govern the global food system from farm to fork† (Patel, 2011). In other words, supermarkets or â€Å"superstores† have dominated and taken over the food system. Wal-Mart would be the leader and most profitable giant in this group. With the company’s rampant globalization and its negative impact on American businesses, employees, and overall health, Wal-Mart has proven time and time again that it is no good for America. To begin with, Wal-Mart’s rapid growth has led to great success for the company, but at the expense of small businesses around the nation. â€Å"Supermarkets rule the food chain† (Patel, 2011). Smaller shops and businesses have been taking huge hits in recent years. Small â€Å"mom and pop† stores have been the backbone of American society and a symbol of the American dream since the founding of the country. That being said, Wal-Mart has been in constant competition with these stores, and many say Wal-Mart is doing a great job of destroying all its competition, even some larger manufactures’. â€Å"Not since the days of the British East India Company as the cornerstone of the British imperial system has one single corporate entity been responsible for so much misery† (Freeman Ticknor, 2003). There have been many efforts to combat these â€Å"big box† stores from taking over small communities, while other communities have welcomed stores like Wal-Mart with open arms simply because their community is struggling to survive and they expect such a large business to bring in jobs. It is true that Wal-Mart does bring in jobs. However, as people are applying and taking jobs at Wal-Mart stores, what they do not know is that, they are slowly selling their souls, giving up their pocket books, and becoming slaves of this corporation. â€Å"An exchange of goods at a low price benefits everyone-quoting Adam Smith† (Van Riper, 2008). At what lengths are customers willing to go through to have low prices? Although Wal-Mart offers these low prices, communities still do not want their businesses being forced out and have been fighting the big box store takeover. Americans have not all become accustomed to supermarkets and malls. There are Americans who still enjoy the small â€Å"mom and pop† markets on the corner and like the rich culture that comes from individual shops and town markets. Sometimes, these individuals make a stand against Wal-Mart and other large companies. Take, for example, the success of the citizens of Eureka, California, who were not thrilled with the idea of Wal-Mart coming to town and setting up shop. â€Å"Activists built a well-oiled machine of organized resistance† (Halebsky, 2010). Most towns and communities are not this lucky. The activists had help in this case from Al Norman, the founder of Sprawl-Busters, consultants who help local community campaigns against megastores and other undesirable large-scale developments. This is a reminder that under the right conditions, the small town â€Å"David† can topple a big business â€Å"Goliath† (Halebsky, 2010). When all of these viewpoints are considered, it is clear that Wal-Mart’s rapid growth at the expense of small businesses is bad for the American economy. Wal-Mart is crushing all competitors with no remorse. Wal-Mart forces its way into small communities and forces itself upon the citizens making them into employees and also making it so small business does not stand a chance. Small business in small communities, especially low-income communities, simply cannot compete with a large corporation like Wal-Mart. Though some, like the citizens of Eureka, may be able to fight a Wal-Mart invasion, most are not this lucky nor do they know enough to fight Wal-Mart on their own. Simply put, Wal-Mart is a disease; it infects one community then moves on to the next. In addition to these effects on small businesses around the country, Wal-Mart’s promises of low prices are also impacting its own workforce. These low prices often come at the expense of fair wages and sufficient healthcare plans, leaving Wal-Mart employees to work in poor conditions for little reward. Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees has long been in question. â€Å"The sad truth is that people earning Wal-Mart level wages tend to favor fashions available at the Salvation Army† (Ehrenreich, 2007). In less sarcastic terms, Wal-Mart employees cannot even afford to buy the clothes they sell and have to end up shopping at places like Goodwill and the Salvation Army to clothe themselves and their family. â€Å"You have to keep wages completely down; you have to keep staff down† (Fishman, 2006). This is part of Wal-Mart’s business strategy for higher profit. Wal-Mart offers some of the lowest possible wages for its employees. Wal-Mart also keeps the available staff down so the employees on the clock are constantly swamped with business making them extremely overworked. So Wal-Mart has discovered the secret to maximum profits: keep the wages and amount of employees down, which means paying less people less money while still raking in profit. This sounds dangerously close to a sweatshop. â€Å"Wal-Mart has lately come under fire for its meanness over employees’ health-care benefits† (Economist, 2006). In the movie Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price, there were several interviews with actual Wal-Mart employees who discuss the low wages and poor health care. In an anonymous interview, an employee states that â€Å"you should never have to choose between medicine for your sick child and feeding your family† (Greenwald, 2005). Wal-Mart offers big discounts and low prices, but the employees end up paying for it with low wages and poor health care. â€Å"The biggest single problem was health care costs which were rising 19 percent a year, mainly because Wal-Mart employees are sicker than the average American† (Bianco, 2007). Wal-Mart’s healthcare is a joke. The rates and premiums are through the roof with doctors’ visits costing one hundred dollars or more. The basic healthcare plan is a 25 dollar premium for an individual, 37 dollars for a single parent, and 65 dollars for a family. This plan included 3 total doctor visits per year before the 1000 dollar deductible kicks in (Bianco, 2007). So the key to Wal-Mart’s broken system is that they pay their employees low wages and overwork them, but if an employee falls ill, Wal-Mart’s own healthcare plan does not even provide enough to help their employees back to work. In addition to the low wages and poor healthcare plans that the company offers its employees, there have been an ever-increasing number of sexual harassment cases levied against Wal-Mart. One such case involved a male employee who made an explicit comment to a female employee who was bending over to pick up a package. One Peggy Kimzey, shipping clerk from Warsaw, Missouri, bent over a package when she heard a male store manager laughing with another male employee. When Peggy asked what they were doing, he replied with a sexual comment about her backside. He then continued even after she asked him to stop. Peggy filed a law suit against Wal-Mart. According to her attorney, Peggy, endured many other situations like this in her four years of employment. Peggy also reported that many of the other female employees went through daily degrading remarks from male managers, as well (Glazer, 1996). This was the beginning of many lawsuits against Wal-Mart and certainly not the end. Wal-Mart is also strictly and famously non-union. â€Å"Wal-Mart has been successful in keeping Unions out of its American stores, partly because it has the resources to fight organizers in the stores and in court† (Preface to â€Å"Should Wal-Mart Unionize, 2008). In order to keep goods at discount and keep wages down, Wal-Mart has tried extremely hard to keep any whisper of unionizing out of its stores. There have been countless attempts by Wal-Mart employees to petition and unionize, but even at the suggestion of a union being formed, Wal-Mart managers start the threats and spread rumors of jobs being lost if employees vote yes. One case came out of Jacksonville, Texas, where butchers voted 7 to 3 to unionize. After two weeks, Wal-Mart eliminated the butchers’ jobs by switching to prepackaged meat and scattered the workers to different departments, which effectively abolished the union. The federal Labor judge ruled this act illegal three years later and ordered Wal-Mart to reverse all its actions. However, by that time, the original butchers had left the company. (Pre-face to â€Å"Should Wal-Mart Unionize, 2008). This shows that no matter what, Wal-Mart wins. The corporation will do almost anything to keep unions out of the workforce. With all viewpoints considered, it is clear Wal-Mart does not take care of its employees. Wal-Mart employees struggle to make ends meet and there are employees that have to choose between the whole family eating and provide medicine for a sick child or family member. This is a ridiculous and disturbing way to live. Employees have no choice in most cases because it is the only job they can find in small towns where Wal-Mart has forced out all other small business. Wal-Mart’s treatment of its employees is ludicrous and barbaric, and it borders on slave labor. Wal-Mart plans every move it makes. It knows they are the only choice for most Americans in terms of employment, so they are able to set their own conditions. Wal-Mart sells goods at the lowest possible prices to keep their prices to consumers low. The problem is that they do not care how or from where those cheap goods are obtained. Recently, in the movie Food Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner (2008) broke down the supermarket walls and showed the public where and how their food transforms from raw material to the food sold in stores. â€Å"I think it’s one of the most important battles for consumers to fight, and that is the right to know what’s in their food and how it was grown† (Kenner, 2008). There has been a big push in recent years for more accurate labeling in the food sold in supermarkets. Many producers and supermarkets are fighting to not have labels on their food showing where the food comes from or even what ingredients are in the food. â€Å"Not only do they not want you to know what’s in it, they have managed to make it against the law to criticize their products† (Kenner, 2008). There are laws protecting the meat and produce companies from people openly criticizing their product. Oprah was even sued by the cattle companies for saying â€Å"it makes me not want to ever pick up another Meat patty again† on her show (Kenner, 2008). The meat packers unsuccessfully sued Oprah for bashing their product and loss of profit. Again, Wal-Mart has no regard for how they make money. It does not matter where or how Wal-Mart’s food is obtained, just so it brings in the maximum amount of profit for them. Red meat and poultry is literally packed into houses and not able to move, in order to gain more meat in less space. These extreme conditions, piled onto extensive hormones and steroids administered to boost the size of animals, make many farm animals extremely unhealthy to consume. There has been an extensive amount of E. Coli poisoning breakouts over the past ten years because of these chemicals growing in the intestines and stomachs of the animals. Yet agai n, Wal-Mart does not care how this meat is obtained just so they get it as cheap as possible and they can resale it marked up and make their profit. Americans have forever been informed of the horrible experiences going on overseas in sweatshops that are run by American corporations trying to maximize profit by paying workers in other countries massively low wages to make and produce goods such as clothing. Wal-Mart has also has been accused of running sweatshops and outsourcing its manufacturing jobs overseas to places where it costs less to make goods because they can pay employees less than American workers. â€Å"Americans may not know it, but many of the name-brand products they purchase were made under appalling circumstances† (Clark, 1996). Many companies, such as Sears and Bloomingdale’s, choose to outsource their work in order to maximize profit. Both companies are huge retailers and make a large profit every year, but this profit is largely based on their ability to produce clothing and other goods through sweatshops and cheap child labor in other countries. Wal-Mart is no different. Although Wal-Mart does not directly contract these sweatshops, they do go around the world finding the cheapest made jeans, clothing, toys, etc., and buy all of them up to turn around and sell them for a huge profit. So, no, Wal-Mart does not directly contract these sweatshops, but they do support this ghastly system. Wal-Mart has come into the Chinese economy in the same way it has in America, by putting a big blue store on every corner. In the most recent study, Chinese Wal-Mart stores are employing almost 150,000 people and drawing in more than 1.2 million people a month with more than 100 stores across the nation (Matusitz Leanza, 2009). This is leading to the same kind of shift to low wages and poor working conditions that is happening in the United States. Aware of these many issues surrounding its global presence, Wal-Mart has been growing involved in fair-trading. â€Å"Recently Wal-Mart has quadrupled its purchases of fair trade bananas, thus elim inating non fair trade bananas from its shelves† (Chu, 2009). However, this engagement in the fair trade market is not compatible with Wal-Mart’s current business model. Simply put, even as the economy is in ruins, Wal-Mart is managing to continue to bring in more profit every year at the expense of its workers and the health of its shoppers around the world. â€Å"Wal-Mart is a penny pinchers paradise† (Gross, 2008). So Wal-Mart finds another way to maximize their profit at the expense of others. Wal-Mart chooses to utilize sweatshops and child labor to increase their overall profit. Instead of using American distributors or buying locally, merchandise travels the world in the pursuit of greater profit margins for the company. Wal-Mart also chooses to expand its business overseas to China. This action also takes advantage of Chinese workers who, like America workers, need money and Wal-Mart is their only option. In conclusion, Wal-Mart is a huge corporation with many resources. Wal-Mart employs over 1.3 million people and over 5000 stores nationwide (Freeman Ticknor). It has been under fire a lot for several of its business practices. Wal-Mart offers horrible wages and meager healthcare to its workers. Additionally, there are many examples of rampant sexual harassment issues among the Wal-Mart work force. With these claims not ceasing, it is clear that Wal-Mart does not care enough about its employees to change. Wal-Mart obtains its food and goods from the cheapest provider and has no problem sacrificing quality or nutrition for the bottom line. There is also the controversy over its economic effect on American businesses. Wal-Mart destroys communities and small business. Piece by piece and store by store, Wal-Mart is taking over the United States. It wrecks communities and treats its employees like slaves. Simply put, Wal-Mart is bad for America. â€Å"Americans have stopped trading up and started trading down† (Gross, 2006). References Bianco, A. (2007, February 20). Wal-Mart: The bully of Bentonville: How the high cost of everyday low prices is hurting America. New York: Crown Business. Chu, J. (2009, April 1). The interest of large companies in fair trade is a sign of growing ethical consumption. In D. A. Miller (Ed.), Opposing viewpoints: Fair trade. Greenhaven Press. Clark, C. S. (1996, August 16). Child labor and sweatshops. CQ Researcher 6, 721-744. Ehrenreich, B. (2007, August 20). Unregulated capitalism exploits the poor. In J. Norman (Ed.), Opposing viewpoints: How can the poor be helped. Greenhaven Press. Fishman, C. (2006). The Wal-Mart effect. London, England: The Penguin Group. Freeman, R., Ticknor, A. (2003, November, 14). Wal-Mart is not a business, its an economic disease. Executive Intelligence Review, Retrieved July 7th, 2011, from http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3044wal-mart.html Glazer, S. (1996, July 19). Crackdown on sexual harassment. CQ Researcher 6, 625-648. Greenwald, R. (Director). (2005). Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price [DVD]. Available from www.walmartmovie.com Gross, D. (2008). As economy tanks, Wal-Mart thrives. Slate.com, Retrieved July, 7 2011, from http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/Extra/AsEconomyTanksWalMartThr