Category: Walmart

Introduction

The concept of diversity continues to gain importance in modern society. The main reason for this is the further spread of the idea that gender, sexual, racial, or any other identity of a person does not determine her or her professionalism. Therefore, corporations begin to focus more closely on creating friendly environments, where no one of the employees would experience any kind of discrimination.

LBGTQ presumably are the category of the population that still is facing one of the highest degrees of xenophobia, for which reason the need for inclusion initiatives remains considerable. It is worth noting that they should not presuppose relying on sexual orientation or gender self-identification as the only hiring or promoting criterion since such an approach is counter-productive in terms of business performance. Rather, workplaces are to eliminate open aggression towards homosexuals as well as Trans persons, so that there are no barriers for competent specialists with such identities. This requires intensive promotion of awareness that needs to target at communicating that LGBTQ people are not worse professionals by definition, hence should not be considered unequal to the heterosexual and cisgender.

Current Situation

Walmart is among the companies whose behavior in terms of gay right protection has been ambivalent throughout the recent decade. It its first half, the retailer was silent about the cases of discrimination, “citing a corporate mandate to remain neutral on controversial issues” (Lybarger, 2016, para. 2). It would be impossible, however, for a nationwide company to avoid participating in social discussions for a long period, as its well-being depends strongly on the values and preferences of its customers. Therefore, since the mid-2010s, Walmart has shown its support of LGBTQ, in particular, by opposing anti-gay legislations.

Nevertheless, the ambiguity still exists, which actually is normal in the short run. In 2016, Lybarger characterized Walmart’s protests against the local laws that threatened the social security of LGBTQ people as “purely symbolic” (para. 10). In 2021, McKay reports a considerable difference between the image of the retailer in mass media and the actual situation. According to her, although “the company was designated a 2021 Best Place to Work for LGBTQ Equality”, its real friendliness is around 3 out of 5 (para. 6). These calculations rely on the response by the employees, both those who proclaim their homosexual identity and heterosexual. The former, however, are quite few, which, as the author recognizes, may partly discredit the outcomes.

In one respect, the small amount of gay respondents is quite natural because such people make a statistical minority in society as a whole. Along with this, it may be a marker of certain issues that actually are possible to guess from the replies. Thus, the survey has shown that LGBTQ employees of Walmart are less satisfied with career opportunities in comparison with their heterosexual coworkers; the overall rating is 3.2 versus 2.7 stars, respectively (McKay, 2021, para. 10). The picture of such a kind allows assuming that the former may be unwilling to disclose their identities due to the fear of poorer promotion prospects and possibly improper attitude.

Relevant Measures

Walmart’s initial policy of silence, which actually lasted several decades, along with the outcomes of the above survey shows that the company prefers to behave as if homosexuals did not exist. Another possible, although indirect, confirmation of this is the fact that the owner of Walmart, Jim Walton, supported the proponents of anti-gay political initiatives. Among those was Jay Dickey who stated that “there were no homosexuals in his district” (“Walmart and the Walton family”, 2021, para. 4). Consequently, non-hetero individuals, and non-cis apparently as well, may be invisible in the corporation, which determines the need for appropriate inclusion initiatives.

The main purpose, as said above, lies in promoting awareness, which, in turn, has to cover the following aspects. First, the employees of the retailer at all levels, beginning at the highest, have to realize that homosexuals are different from heterosexuals neither in personal nor in professional terms. It is not reasonable, therefore, to prevent them from career promotion, as competence does not depend on orientation. One of the most apparent ways to communicate this idea is making the personnel acquainted with the biographies of famous gay and bisexual people, for instance by spreading thematic booklets. Realizing that a talented artist or scientist not necessarily is hetero would allow for better representation and gradual but stable change in the public opinion.

Another problem in the case under review apparently lies in mixing personal and work relationships. In other words, the management of Walmart appeal to their negative attitude towards homosexuals, which most probably rests on stereotypes and prejudice, as to an argument against promoting those. Such an approach is as much destructive as employing LGBTQ exclusively by this criterion since the resulting quality of the company’s performance may decrease seriously. Teams where personal motives prevail over business goals cannot be productive, and accomplishing the latter is impossible in case bosses value sexual orientation more than competence. It would be reasonable, therefore, to teach the personnel mutually respective behavior regardless of their opinions about each other. A possible way to do this is trainings that target at improving teamwork skills.

Implementation

As said above, one of the ways to improve the visibility of LGBTQ is popularizing the gifted and outstanding representatives of this category of population. A comfortable channel of spreading such information is brief but informative booklets, ideally with illustrations and of pleasant design for maximal attractiveness. It would be relevant to leave those in personnel recreation rooms, canteens, and other areas where employees spend their free time and may need reading to abstract themselves from work. An essential nuance is the need for focusing not solely on the support staff, but on the management as well since they are responsible for corporate policies, hence the friendliness of the workplace.

Regarding the above tolerant behavior trainings, they are quite compatible with any other forms of team building. It may be sufficient for noticeable progress in a certain period to devote 10-15 minutes of each meeting to the topic. Modelling conflict situations and their resolutions, emotion-control techniques, theory-based activities such as prioritizing the factors of productive teamwork – tasks of those kinds do not require much time and effort but can be helpful. Similar to the previous solution, it is critical to involve the administration because employment and promotion decisions depend on them.

Timeframe

Lasting improvement, which is the main purpose of the initiative, cannot be rapid; it requires regular repetitions throughout a relatively long period. In the case under review, it is unreasonable to count on less than 2-3 years. Within those, each corporate meeting, whether they occur weekly or monthly, has to involve a tolerance component, and the booklets need replacing every 1-2 months to allow for a constant flow of new information.

Monitoring

It is not sufficient to offer a solution, as it is senseless without a proper implementation that, in turn, requires close supervision. In the given case, it is most reasonable to appeal to the activists of gay right movements because, as mentioned above, the owners of Walmart are not quite enthusiastic about promoting LGBTQ. Cooperation with local authorities is possible solely in democratic states, while republican governments, including that of the retailer’s home state of Arkansas, will hardly support the initiative.

The activists are to not only prepare booklets, receive permissions for spreading them in Walmart stores, and provide sufficient amounts. Finding competent team building coaches and sharing the contacts of those with the administrations of the stores is their responsibility as well. Then, it is critical to collect reports on a regular basis to ensure that the solutions have been implemented successfully and sabotage is minimal, if any.

Conclusion

The insufficient visibility of LGBTQ remains a big problem, primarily due to the inadequate stereotypical perception of this group of people. This not only discourages its representatives from disclosing their identities, but also can reduce their chances for career promotion. Considering the data on the latter, Walmart apparently is among the employers that are less LGBTQ-friendly in fact than they may seem to be from their media images. Therefore, there is the need for promoting awareness, for instance, by making the staff at all levels acquainted with the achievements of talented and famous LGBTQ people. Another relevant solution is team-building trainings that would help Walmart workers, especially the management, avoid extrapolating their personal attitude to the other on work relationships.

References

Lybarger, J. (2016). Why Walmart became LGBT-friendly.Advocate, Web.

McKay, S. (2021). Walmart ranked 6 on LGBT support.Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Web.

Walmart and the Walton family: not friends of the LGBT (despite the PR). (2021). Making Change at Walmart. Web.

Introduction

Wal-Mart is a leader in the retail industry. However past research revealed that this retail giant remunerates its employees at rates that are on the lower side. A recent survey drawn on a sample of 100 interviews was conducted to determine employee job satisfaction. The findings show that Wal-Mart employees are not happy with their pay check.

Findings

As the pie chart below shows, 54% of the employees surveyed feel that the ‘salary and benefit package’ that Wal-Mart gives them is not attractive.

This concurs with the general feeling 60% of the employees have that the pay they receive is not commensurate with the work they do as shown in the corn bar graph above.

As the visual below (right) shows, most of the respondents (19% and 24%) were in need of a second job. A good number (24%) do not need a second job. When asked whether the high turnover in Wal-Mart had any connection with wage rate many (32%) were

Noncommittal although a good number (19% +22%) felt that there was a connection (see bar graph above, on the left). For more details see the summary table in appendix 1.

Hypothesis testing

A hypothesis is an “assumption [made] about a population parameter” (Levin and Rubin 1991 p.346). The objective of this exercise is to test the population mean of Wal-Mart employees.

Hypothesis statement

The null hypothesis (H₀) is that the ‘population mean’ (μ) is equal to the hypothesized mean (μ_H0) which is 550 stated as: H_0: μ = μ_H0=550. The alternative hypothesis (H_a) is that the ‘population mean’ is not 550. This creates two alternatives: μ is less than 550 or μ is greater than 550. This is statistically stated as: H_a: μ ≠ μ_H0, which gives raise to: H_a: μ < μ_H0, or H_a: μ > μ_H0.

Significance level

A 5% level of significance has been predetermined for this test. This means that the probability of committing a type I error is 0.05.

Test statistic

The preferred test statistic for this test is ‘z’ because it is the best method for “comparing the mean of a sample to a hypothesized mean for a population”(Kothari 2003 p.237).

Decision rule

A confidence level of 5% means that the acceptance region will take 95% or 0.95 of the normal distribution curve area. Being a two tailed test, there will be two critical values (“the values that lie exactly on the boundary of the region of rejection” (Zikmund p.502).).Half of 0.95 is 0.4750 which reads a ‘z’ of 1.96 in the normal curve area table. With δ_p given as 33 and n as 100 the critical value for the lower region is μ-zδ_p÷ SQRT of ‘n’ or 550-(1.96x(33÷SQRT100)) which gives 543.5. Critical value for the upper limit is 556.5. The decision rule is to reject H_0, if the ‘sample mean’ (X bar) appears outside the critical limits.

Sample and decision

From a sample of 100 employees interviewed; the mean score (X bar) on the five point scale on the survey question ‘Do you feel like you are paid fairly for the work you perform?’; equaled 20 (see appendix 2). The sample mean is outside the critical region on the lower side or H_a: μ < μ_H0 because 20<550. Therefore the decision is that the population mean is no longer 550 and hence the null hypothesis should be rejected.

Appendix 1

Summary Table Wal-Mart job satisfaction survey

Appendix 2

Sample mean (X bar) for the survey question ‘Do you feel like you are paid fairly for the work you perform?’

References

Kothari, C.R., (2003). Research Methodology: Methods & Technique, 2^nd Edition. India. Wishwa Prakashan.

Levin, R.I. & Rubin, D.S. (1991), Statistics for Management, 5^th Edition. USA. Prentice-Hall International Inc.

Zikmund, W.G., (2008). Business Research Methods, 7th Edition, USA. South Western

In 2004, two of my friends working with Wal-Mart stores were among other 1.6 million former and present-at the time employees who were enjoined in a case where their employer was sued for upholding sex-discriminatory practices. In the case, Wal-Mart was sued for paying less to its female employees fewer promotions and lesser compensation although they attended to similar duties and responsibilities during their work. The evidence brought against Wal-Mart included lower pay from women in the same job groups as men who earned higher, widening wage gap over time for men and women who enter the workforce at the same time and promotions that favoured men. Further, it was noted that women made up 70 percent of Wal-Mart’s workforce. However, there was only a one-third representation of women at the retailer’s managerial levels.

Presiding over this case US district Judge Martin Jenkins said that all the women employees of Wal-Mart enjoined in the case “had enough in common to be treated as a whole”. He further recommended that the certification of the case “should not be construed in any manner as a ruling on the merits or the probable outcome of the case” Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 137 (N.D. Cal. 2004). This was in response to the Wal-Mart petition that a class-size action by its current and former employees with too big in size and scope and hence unmanageable. Wal-Mart argued that the number of women who had been in active employment since 1998 until the filing of the classification case was approximately 1.5 million; a number that not only made the case impossible, but impractical. The judge however stated that the law does not discriminate against large employers and therefore Wal-Mart, just like other employers was liable to the law. This was the first victory for the women in the court case, which was initially filed in 2000 by 54 year old Betty Dukes. Dukes claimed that after six years of work at Wal-Mart, she had received neither the necessary training that would see her rise through the ranks, nor fair treatment when considered to her male counterparts. In addition, she had been demoted by reporting sex discrimination to her manager when she reported that she was facing sex discrimination.

The official recognition for the class action case in the case of “Betty Dukes, Patricia Surgeson, Cleo Page, Deborah Gunter, Karen Williamson, Christine Kwapnoski and Edith Arana (on behalf of themselves and all others similarly situated),” dukes V. Wal-Mart, was given in part and denied in part. Judge Jenkins noted that the Plaintiffs were seeking injunctions, declaratory relief, lost pay and class punitive damages that could apply to the entire class, but were not seeking compensatory damages “on behalf of the class”. The motion filed by Dukes and others sought to represent all women employed in different Wal-Mart stores and departments countrywide starting December 26, 1998 to the time that the court case was filed. A statement released by Wal-Mart stated that the number could be as high as 1.5 million women.

Judge Jenkins approved the plaintiff’s equal-pay motion. As the presiding judge, Jenkins stated that the proposed class in that motion had been certified with respect to liability claims and other forms of requested claims. The Plaintiff’s promotion claim motion was however partially granted and partially denied. In his notes Judge Jenkins, stated that liability and punitive damages for the women in the case can only be judged on an individual basis and when objective data on the same would be obtained. As such, the court partially denied the promotion claim class certification on grounds that the claim was unmanageable, especially considering that no data regarding the promotion claim was available for all class members.

Legal standard followed in Dukes v. Wal-Mart

In Zinser v. Accufix Research Institute, Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1136 (9^th circ. 2001), the court established that any party which sought a class certification for its case would have to meet four requirements as set by the Federal Rule Civil procedure 23a and demonstrate the same to the court. The four rules in 23a include: 1) the class should be so big that handling each individual case of all members is impracticable; 2) there should be questions fact or law common to the identified class; 3) the claim of the representative plaintiffs must be similar to the claims of the larger class, and 4) the representative plaintiff should have the capacity to adequately protect and fairly represent the concerns of the class. In short, the class represented by the plaintiffs must satisfy commonality, numerosity, adequacy and typicality requirements.

Rule 23b on the other hand requires that one out of the three additional requests be met. In cases that fall in section 2 of Rule 23b, the plaintiff , in this case Dukes and the class would have to assert that the defendant (Wal-Mart) had acted or refused to address to issues affecting the class, therefore making it necessary for the court to make an appropriate injunctive relied of declaratory relief favouring the class.

Analysis

Commonality under rule 23 a

Though this requirement seems to overlap with the functionality requirement under the Supreme Court, commonality refers to the legal issues and relationship facts that applies to all class members. This refers to characteristics that apply to the entire group as a whole. In Wal-Mart’s case, all that was needed was the plaintiff to show that class members shared in gender-based discrimination that was perpetuated by their employer against female employees.

In Dukes v. Wal-Mart it was established that the evidence by the plaintiff could be categorised into: Facts and professional opinions that supported the presence of policies and practices that Wal-Mart had put in place; 2) Statistical evidence drawn by expert to support the gender disparities that could be attributed to discrimination; and 3) anecdotal evidence that the management of Wal-Mart had tolerated discriminatory attitudes. The court concluded that the plaintiff in Dukes v. Wal-Mart had produced enough evidence to satisfy the burden needed to demonstrate commonality.

Numerosity under Rule 23a

Under Staton v. Boeing Co., 327 F. 3d 938, 953 (9^th cir. 2003) it was established that a plaintiff does not have to state the exact people in the class. In the case, it was also established that there was no specific minimum capacity of people needed to classify a suit as a class suit. In Arnold v. United Artists theatre circuit, Inc., 158 FRD, 439, 448 (ND. Cal. 1994), it was further established that the practicability or impracticability of a suit would depend on the circumstances and the facts of each case. In Dukes v. Wal-Mart, Wal-Mart did not content that the case had satisfied the Numeoristy factor. The retailer stated that all female employees who had been employed by the firm since 1998 until 2004 had hit the 1.5 million target.

Typicality Requirement under 23a

The typicality requirement states that “the named plaintiffs should be members of the class they represent and should possess the same interest in addition to having suffered the same injury as other class members.” Dukes v. Wal-Mart

Wal-Mart argued that the representatives of the class had worked in stores and therefore did not satisfy the “typicality requirement” because they occupied “lower level salaried in-store management positions” and therefore could not represent the range of managers who were high ranking than them. This too was shot down with arguments that “Typicality is not defeated because of the varied promotional opportunities at issues or the differing qualifications of the class members represented by the plaintiff.” Paxton v. Union National bank, 688 F. 2d 552, 562 (8^th circ. 1982).

Wal-Mart further stated that each named plaintiff had an “individual-specific” case thus meaning that the claims were not typical of the class that the plaintiffs sought to represent. This too was shot down; when the court argued that it was well within the expectations of the court for all cases to have some individual-specificity characteristics. According to the court, this did not defeat typicality. In Adams v. Pinole Point Steel Co., WL 515347 (ND Cal. May 18, 1994), it w as established that the court should consider the named plaintiffs were exposed to injury from the discriminatory practices of their employer in the same manner that the class members they seek to represent did, and whether the nature of discrimination in the workplace injured members in a similar fashion. As such, the court ruled that Wal-Mart had been found to have a subjective decision-making culture that was uniform and gender specific and therefore the individual employees regardless of the stores they worked in or their different pay levels were exposed to a common discriminatory practice.

Adequacy of representation requirement under rule 23a

Under this rule, the law requires that the named plaintiffs/ representatives have no conflicting interests with the class members and that the plaintiff be adequately represented by competent counsel. Wal-Mart’s argument was that there existed conflicting interests among the class members, the named plaintiffs and decision-making agents at the stores. However, this was dismissed on grounds that Wal-Mart had failed to identify a “substantive issue for which there was a conflict of interest among sets of employees represented by the named plaintiffs.” Dukes v. Wal-Mart

Rule 23b (2)

Wal-Mart claimed that the punitive damages that were included in the claim rendered the case unsuitable to be certified as a class case, claiming that the sheer size of the class made the case unmanageable. The court however noted that the plaintiffs had foregone any compensatory damages and instead sought punitive damages in order to punish Wal-mart for the “reckless disregard of women’s right and the equal employment opportunities” Dukes v. Wal-Mart. at 52

Borrowing from Molski v. Gleich, 318 f. 3d 937 (9^th cir.2003), the court had the discretion to examine facts of the case in order to find out the intent of each of the named plaintiff in bringing the litigation. It was thus established that Betty Dukes was motivated by “a need to see the employment practices at Wal-Mart scrapped, so that women can obtain management positions as well as equal pay for comparable work. Women also need to access the mentorship and training programs necessary to advance in the company easily” ibid

In the ruling, the court stated that it was satisfied that the named plaintiffs had a primary goal of bringing equitable relief to Wal-Mart female employees, and only had the punitive damages claim only as their secondary goal.

References

Adams v. Pinole Point Steel Co., WL 515347 (ND Cal. 1994) Arnold v. United Artists theatre circuit, Inc., 158 FRD, 439, 448.

Bennet-Alexander, D. & Hartman, L. (Ed.). (2008) Employment Law for Business. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

Dukes v. Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., 222 F.R.D. 137 (N.D. Cal. 2004) Molski v. Gleich, 318 f. 3d 937 (2003)

Paxton v. Union National bank, 688 F. 2d 552, 562 (8^th circ. 1982).

Stanton v. Boeing Co., 327 F. 3d 938, 953 (9^th cir. 2003)

Zinser v. Accufix Research Institute, Inc., 253 F.3d 1180, 1136 (9^th circ. 2001)

Legislation overview

The federal labor regulations generally cover relationships between an employer and employee; the pay regulations usually take care of relationships between an organization and its workers. However, the labor acts are applied interchangeably, which are more regularly utilized.

The labor acts are difficult to implement in the area of workplace environments and remunerations. The Fair Labor Standards Act, adopted in the year 1938, standardizes minimum salaries and overtime remuneration for some workers who work over 40 hours per week.

The federal act sets up overtime compensation and lowest salaries for most employees in the public and private areas; regional and national acts may offer more liberal rights, likewise, the federal act offers minimum industry safety standards, but permits the states to assume such roles and offer more strict measures. Both regional and national acts protect employees from any pay prejudices. Most laws prevent bias on the basis of sex, faith, age, race and country of origin (Milkovich et al., 2010).

On the other hand, the Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act were enacted as a way of reacting to a number of the United States Court’s rulings, undermining the rights of workers who had petitioned their employers for prejudice.

The two acts provide the right to trial by panel of judges on prejudice issues and introduce the likelihood of emotional agony injuries, whereas restricting the amount that a panel of judges could award. The two laws, which were adopted with a 40 year gap, dealt with employment inequity quite differently. Section 1981 barred inequity based only on skin color, whereas Title VII barred inequity based on gender, faith and country of origin (Danner, 2012).

This report discuses the impact of the legislation on one component of the Wal-Mart’s approach to compensation, clearly demonstrating the connection to the components of the compensation system. It also describes how the provisions of the legislation might challenge the alignment of the compensation model.

Wal-Mart’s compensation system

Wal-Mart manages its employees’ compensation framework via Claims Management Inc., an entirely owned branch of Wal-Mart Retailers.

In order to become and remain self-insured, the workers have to meet a number of requirements. In California, workers should apply to and be certified by the California Employees’ Compensation Agency’s Department of Insurance. They have to go via a submission procedure, and pay a security amount to be utilized in case the employers default on their obligation to offer employees’ compensation benefits to their workers.

The deposit is derived from the compensation system, and it is updated every 12 months for sufficiency based on compensation adjustments and the company’s sustained liabilities. Likewise, New York requires workers to be approved by the state Office of Industrial Relations in order to submit a security amount (amended yearly to cater for losses sustained) and forward to insurance scheme audits (Mark, 2001).

Impact of the legislation

The capability, with which the compensation framework is expected to work, is what the employees’ reward model relies on. The no-fault framework has been designed with a view of ensuring that employees get sufficient healthcare care, and the necessary reparation, whereas shielding the company from individual claims.

A well organized connection between a company and a worker, a doctor and an insurance agency provides a quicker recovery for workers. The employees who suffered at their workplaces and who do not get judicious benefits or even battle the employer through every phase of the court case, end up ensnared in a fiscal liability in most instances. The workers are then forced to refer to public assistance for treatment (Milkovich et al., 2010).

Legislation vs. compensation system

Wal-Mart is weakening the compensation framework by unduly holding up payment of legal benefits, and by derailing even evidently genuine employees’ compensation issues.

For example, In Dukes v. Wal-Mart Company, the petitioner claimed that female workers over the last 10 years have been remunerated less than their male counterparts in similar levels and that Wal-Mart intentionally ignored women workers when promoting some of its workers to management.

The gender discrimination was even more outstanding when compensation levels are further disintegrated whereas the enormous majority of the company’s cashiers are ladies, only a few are line supervisors (Milkovich et al., 2010).

Under the state laws of Civil Process, parties applying class certification have to demonstrate, among other concerns, that “(1) the class is such that inclusion of other people is not practicable, (2) there is question of law common to the class, (3) the issues of the agent parties are characteristic of the issues of the class, and (4) the agent parties will justly and sufficiently defend the interests of the group” (Brooke & Joyce, 2004).

There may be inadequate information on how many workers, men and ladies, applied for the management jobs. But if such a case prevails, whether at trial or by settlement, considerable financial compensation may be awarded to petitioners under Fair Labor Standards Act and Equal Pay Act and Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.

References

Brooke, A. & Joyce, A. (2004). Costco is the latest class-action target: Lawyers’ interest increases in potentially lucrative discrimination suits. Washington Post, p. 13.

Danner, P. (2012). Floresville woman added to suit. San Antonio Express-News, p. 2C.

Mark, D. (2001). Attention Wal-Mart workers: Please do not report injuries,” Seattle Weekly, p. 8.

Milkovich, G., Newman, J., & Gerhart, B. (2010). Compensation (10th ed.). Buckingham, England: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

The following is a paper on a practical proposal addressing a local problem. This paper is a summary of my research on the employees’ rights violation at the giant Wal-Mart retail stores.

The paper has information on how the rights of the employees have been violated (low salary, poor working conditions, employee discrimination and inadequate health care).

Due to the employees’ violation at Wal-Mart, the information in the paper provides guidance on how workers can go about resolving their issue (by forming or joining trade unions). It goes in depth to explain how these unions work and finally gives a justification on the whole issue.

Wal-Mart is the largest retail store in America and the world. The retail store is still spreading its dominance worldwide, starting in Asia where it has its stores in over ten countries, Europe and South America. The giant retail store is still planning to expand its business dealings on an even wider scope in the near future.

The giant store possesses incentives that are geared towards profit making, due to the recent recession though, the incentives tend to hurt its workers. With Wal-Mart’s effort to make a way into hypermarket cultures all over the world, lots of severe setbacks have come into play.

What is more, low-wages, low benefits, employment discrimination, poor healthcare, anti-union policies, and bad working conditions have made Wal-Mart an evil business in the eyes of their employees. This paper will therefore concentrate on Wal-Mart’s employee violations, propose a solution to this and finally find a justification on the whole issue.

“With about two million employees worldwide, Wal-Mart has faced a torrent of lawsuits and issues with regards to its workforce. These issues involve low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, employee discrimination, as well as issues involving the company’s strong anti-union-policies” (Keil & Lee 336).

Criticism has pointed out to Wal-Mart’s soaring turnover rates as proof to a discontented labor force, even if other aspects may possibly be involved. A study has shown that, roughly seventy five percent of its workers leave inside one year with the firm.

Wal-Mart’s full-time hourly associates receive, a standard, 10.11 dollars every hour; with 34 hours in a week, a worker gets 17,874 dollars in a year which is 20% lesser than an average retail employee. The firm is also accused of poor employee working conditions.

This is evidenced by lawsuits against the firm asserting that workers are sometimes forced to work off the clock (where overtime pay is refuted), are denied lunch breaks or even stopped from taking rests.

The best solution on the problems affecting Wal-Mart employees lies in the forming and joining of labor unions that will advocate for the workers’ rights. Labor unions and particularly in the United States are lawfully distinguished as representatives of employees and workers in various industries.

“Activities by labor unions in the United States today centers on collective bargaining over wages, benefits, and working conditions for their membership, and on representing their members if by any chance the management attempts to violate contract provisions” (Zieger & Gall 548).

In this case therefore, forming and joining labor unions is the way forward as they will advocate policy implementation and legislations on behalf of the employees, despite the fact that wall mart has strong anti-union policies.

With the union again, the workers will notably gain some equity and bargaining power, this comes about when violations against the workers have been experienced (Zieger & Gall 548).

The union makes sure that the law is followed and that a contract term drafted by a single party, is intrinsically biased (the union makes sure the employees and the management are the stakeholders in contract drafting), “as a result the union brings the management and the workers as close as to equal as possible providing a legal counter weight to the management” (Zieger & Gall 548).

The employees are also responsible in electing their own representatives in the union who will air their grievances to the union in cases of employee violations, in order for the union to take corrective measures.

As a justification for what the workers need to do, there is a tight regulation in the labor union on private-sector union membership by the NLRA (National Labor Relations Act).

This law is run by the National Labor Relations Board, a self-governing national organization, this union and others are controlled partially by federal government and partially by government laws.

General they have displayed vigorous growth for pay, and workers conditions are put through negotiations with selected local and government officers.

When joining a labor union, employees must either be granted voluntary acknowledgment from the employer or acquire majority employees in the bargaining-unit vote to be represented in a union; in both cases, the federal government is to endorse the union (Zieger & Gall 548).

“Once the union has won the support of a majority in the bargaining unit and is certified in a workplace, it has the sole authority to negotiate the conditions of employment;” (Zieger & Gall 548) as shown by Zeiger & gall (548) again, the management and the union together draft the stipulations and conditions of service in lawfully binding contracts.

When violations do occur in the workplace, majority contracts bring in other parties to take care of their differences, via a complaint procedure to see if the problem can be jointly resolved. “If the union and the employer still cannot settle the matter, either party can choose to send the dispute to arbitration, where the case is argued before a neutral third party” (Zieger & Gall 548)

A number of U.S. economists are trying to analyze whether Wal-Mart has a positive or negative impact particularly on the American economy. The major irony behind this is that the analysis is sponsored by Wal-Mart itself.

In attempting to mend its reputation and reach out to critics Wal-Mart conducts gatherings and conferences in Washington D.C., despite this, Wal-Mart is evidently dragging down American living standards when they violate their employees’ rights.

They do this when they pay poverty level wages and other benefits. Conversely, they argue that they have the lowest pricing which is beneficial to consumers, particularly the poor while keeping the overall inflation checked.

To alleviate this it is necessary that its workers form or join labor unions. There many advantages in these unions, some of these are better wages and benefits for its members, improved work conditions together with social networks providing financial, emotional and legislative hold up.

The actual gain from a union though is the provision of another stronger voice in bargaining during contract formation.

Works Cited

Keil, Stanley. & Spector, Lee. The Impact of Wal-Mart on Income and Unemployment Differentials in Alabama. Review of Regional Studies; Winter, 35 (3), 336-355. 2005. Print.

Zieger, Robert, & Gilbert, Gall. American Workers, American Unions: The Twentieth Century. Maryland. John Hopkins University Press. 2002. Print.

The antitrust laws were created to enhance competition in the market. The law provides equal opportunities to all firms in the market, and regulates firms which develop strategies to hinder other firms from competing with them. The government aims at creating competition in the market so that firms can provide good quality products.

At the same time, these products should be given reasonable prices. This law protects firms and consumers too. Companies that do not comply with the provisions of these laws risk being sued and fined (Hylton, 2003).

Wal-Mart is an example of a company that has been reported to contravene the provisions of the antitrust laws. In many occasions, the company has experienced lawsuits in protest to a contravention with antitrust laws.

Wal-Mart has established retail stores and has dominated the US market. The firm has the characteristics of a monopsonist. A monopsonist refers to a situation where a single firm dictates the supply of products in the market. In such a situation, only one buyer seeks the products of several suppliers.

This gives the monopsonist the opportunity to dictate the market by offering low prices to suppliers (Besanko, 2011). A monopsonist operates at a point where marginal cost (MC) is equal to marginal revenue (MRp).

Therefore, the firm gets extraordinary profits because the demand is equivalent to the aggregate demand of supply. From the diagram below, it is evident that monopsonist gets abnormal profits because the labor demand is higher while the wage price is low.

Source: Haworth (n.d.).

Wal-Mart has been accused of applying the strategies of a monopsonist despite the fact that many similar firms exist in the market. For example, Coca-Cola Company has been forced by Wal-Mart to sell its products at very low prices.

Since Wal-Mart has the capacity to buy many products from Coca-Cola, the company has developed the strategy to offer low prices. Wal-Mart has also been accused of offering low wages to the workers. The company has employed many people and has taken advantage of being a top employer by offering very low wages.

This has made the employees of the company strike. Labor unions have complained about the low wages offered to workers by the firm (Lynn, 2006).

In 2005, Wal-Mart and Netflix colluded to create a monopoly in the DVD market. The two companies had developed a strategy to divide the market for DVDs. This was done to reduce competition in the market. The agreement was that Wal-Mart would not rent DVDs through the online channels.

This would offer Netflix the opportunity to sell DVDs in the market. This strategy was adopted when Blockbuster Company started to sell DVDs through online systems. The strategy developed by Wal-Mart and Netflix would make Netflix the sole marketer of DVDs.

This would discourage any other company in the industry. As such, suppliers of DVDs would be influenced to offer their products at low prices. Netflix started to offer competitive prices to its subscribers.

This aimed at driving competitors out of the market. The two companies were sued and found guilty of contravening the antitrust laws. The two companies were fined $40 million (Bloomberg News, 2010).

In conclusion, it is worth mentioning that antitrust laws were developed to protect companies from unfair business conduct. The laws give opportunities to firms to exploit the market with no restrictions from any single company.

A free market environment has been encouraged to create competition. Wal-Mart continues to practice unfair business, and this has made the company be fined for failing to adhere to the antitrust laws.

Reference List

Besanko, D. (2011). Microeconomics. Hoboken, N.J: Wiley.

Bloomberg News (2010). Antitrust suit against Netflix and Wal-Mart is given class-action status. Web.

Haworth, B. (n.d.). Monopsony. Web.

Hylton, K. N. (2003). Antitrust law: Economic theory and common law. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Lynn, B. C. (2006). The Case for Breaking up Wal-Mart. Web.

Introduction

This paper assesses the overtime dispute that Wal-Mart faced. In 2007 Wal-Mart has paid $34 million in back wages and interest for calculating overtime incorrectly over a span of almost 5 years. The agreement with the Department of Labor covers 86,680 employees who worked for the company from February 1, 2002, to January 19, 2007 (Wal-Mart to Pay $34M for Incorrect OT Calculations 2007). This may be classified as a labor standard dispute.

The retail giant Wal-Mart has become the nation’s largest private-sector employer with an estimated 1.2 million employees (Bianco & Zellner 2003). The company’s annual revenues now amount to 2 percent of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (Stein 2003). Wal-Mart’s success is attributed to its ability to charge low prices in mega-stores offering everything from toys and furniture to groceries. While charging low prices obviously has some consumer benefits, mounting evidence from across the country indicates that these benefits come at a steep price for American workers, U.S. labor laws, and community living standards. The paper assesses the historical background of the overtime dispute, the root causes, and what were the procedure that was employed to reach a plausible solution to the problem.

Historical Background

Wal-Mart has a history of overtime disputes and settlements. While wages are low at Wal-Mart, too often employees are not paid at all. The retail giant improperly calculated overtime payments by failing to include bonus payments into the employees’ pay rate when calculating overtime premium. The agreement also addresses payment of overtime to certain non-exempt salaried interns, manager trainees, and programmer trainees. While violations of this nature are common, Steven Mandel, an associate solicitor at the Department of Labor (DOL), said “these are serious violations.” The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), along with state wage and hour laws, requires hourly employees to be paid for all time actually worked at no less than a minimum wage and at time-and-a-half for all hours worked over 40 in a week (U.S.C. 201). Wal-Mart, facing approximately 70 lawsuits for wage and hour violations throughout the country, reported these violations to the Department of Labor and then settled with the DOL.

These labor laws have posed a particular obstacle for Wal-Mart. As of December 2002, there were thirty-nine class-action lawsuits against the company in thirty states, claiming tens of millions of dollars in back pay for hundreds of thousands of Wal-Mart employees (Chicago Tribune 2003).

Many observers blame the wage-and-hour problems at Wal-Mart on the pressure placed on managers to keep labor costs down. In 2002, operating costs for Wal-Mart were just 16.6 percent of total sales, compared to a 20.7 percent average for the retail industry as a whole (Greengouse 2002). Wal-Mart reportedly awards bonuses to its employees based on earnings. With other operating and inventory costs set by higher-level management, store managers must turn to wages to increase profits. While Wal-Mart expects those managers to increase sales each year, it expects the labor costs to be cut by two-tenths of a percentage point each year as well (UFCW 2004).

Reports from former Wal-Mart managers seem to corroborate this dynamic. Joyce Moody, a former manager in Alabama and Mississippi, told the New York Times that Wal-Mart “threatened to write up managers if they didn’t bring the payroll in low enough.” Depositions in wage and hour lawsuits reveal that company headquarters leaned on management to keep their labor costs at 8 percent of sales or less, and managers, in turn, leaned on assistant managers to work their employees off-the-clock or simply delete time from employee timesheets (Greenhouse 2002).

In its 2006 annual report, Wal-Mart spends nearly two pages of text outlining its legal problems, including certified class action lawsuits in California, Colorado, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

Most of these cases were brought under the Fair Labor Standards Act by current and former Wal-Mart employees, who charge they were forced to work “off the clock” and not paid for the work they performed. The DOL sued Wal-Mart for failing to pay time-and-a-half pay to its workers when they worked in excess of 40 hours per week.

The federal lawsuit also charged that Wal-Mart did not properly calculate bonuses and geographical variations in pay when calculating the wages before determining the time-and-a-half rate.

Wal-Mart set the salaries of some managers in training based on a 45-hour or 48-hour week but failed to pay them overtime when they worked more than 40 hours. This week’s settlement is one of the largest on record.

The consent decree was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District in Fort Smith, Arkansas. In response, Wal-Mart says that it tipped off the DOL that the company had overtime problems, which were uncovered during an audit Wal-Mart did on its own books.

Legal Implications

Overtime is the amount of time someone works beyond normal working hours. In the U.S., the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) of 1938 applies to employees in industries engaged in or producing goods for, interstate commerce. The FLSA establishes a standard workweek of 40 hours for certain kinds of workers and mandates payment for overtime hours to those workers of one and one-half times the workers’ normal rate of pay for any time worked above 40 hours. The law creates two broad categories of employees; those who are “exempt” from the regulation, which is exempt from the regulation include certain types of administrative, professional, and executive employees. To qualify as an administrative, professional, or executive employee and therefore not be entitled to overtime, three tests must be passed based on a salary basis, duties, and salary level and those who are “non-exempt”. Under the law, employers are not required to pay exempt employees overtime but must do so for non-exempt employees. Independent contractors are not considered employees and are not protected by the FLSA.

An employer may not retaliate against an employee for filing a complaint or instituting a proceeding based on the FLSA. An employer that does retaliate would be liable under the Fair Labor Standards Act Section 216(b) for equitable relief including reinstatement, promotion, payment of lost wages, and payment of liquidated damages. Acts of retaliation include terminating employment, disrupting the workplace, threats, acts of physical violence, and constructive discharge.

Time off in lieu; compensatory time; or comp time refers to a type of work schedule arrangement that allows workers to take time off instead of, or in addition to, receiving overtime pay. A worker may receive overtime pay plus equal time off for each hour worked on certain agreed days, such as Bank Holidays. In the United States, such arrangements are currently illegal for private-sector workers under overtime laws, but the practice is legal in the public sector (U.S.C. 207).

Some employers require employees to work “off the clock” by prohibiting them from recording time actually worked; failing to compensate them for meal periods and rest breaks; failing to pay overtime for travel from shop to work-site and back; not paying overtime for time spent working while traveling; failing to pay overtime for attendance at training, meetings, and lectures; failing to compensate for arriving early to perform necessary preparations for work; not paying overtime for a time it takes to suit-up or put the protective gear on, time waiting to log in, on-call time, or time in security line; forcing employees to work on the weekends without clocking in; or instructing them to report fewer hours than actually worked. Such practices are generally prohibited in the United States under the overtime laws for non-exempt employees (U.S. DOL).

When an employer violates overtime law, employees have the right to seek back pay for the wages they are entitled to. Complaints can be filed with the Department of Labor’s Employment Standards Administration Wage and Hour Division who investigates overtime law violations claim. In 2003 alone, this agency helped to recover $212 million dollars in back wages and $10 million in civil penalties for overtime law violation.

The state of California’s overtime laws involves overlapping statutes, regulations, and precedents that govern the compensation of employees in California. California overtime law is codified in provisions of the California Labor Code and in Wage Orders of the Industrial Welfare Commission. Because there are two sources of applicable law (federal and state), a California employer must comply with whichever standard provides greater protection to employees. In California, based on California Labor Code 1171, only an employment relationship is required for overtime rules to apply.

Key Participants

In 2001, Wal-Mart forked over $50 million in unpaid wages to 69,000 workers in Colorado. These wages were paid only after the workers filed a class-action lawsuit. Wal-Mart had been working the employees off-the-clock. The company also paid $500,000 to 120 workers in Gallup, New Mexico, who filed a lawsuit over unpaid work (Chicago tribune 2003). In a Texas class-action certified in 2002 on behalf of 200,000 former and current Wal-Mart employees, statisticians estimated that the company shortchanged its workers $150 million over four years – just based on the frequency of employees working through their daily 15 minute breaks (Greenhouse 2002). In Oregon, 400 employees in 27 stores sued the company for unpaid, off-the-clock overtime. In their suit, the workers explained that managers would delete hours from their time records and tell employees to clean the store after they clocked out. In December 2002, a jury found in favor of the workers (Chicago Tribune 2003). One personnel manager claimed that, for six years, she was forced to delete hours from employee timesheets (Foden-Vencil 2004). In a class-action filed in November 2003, noting evidence of systematic violations of the wage-and-hour law, a judge certified a lawsuit for 65,000 Wal-Mart employees in Minnesota. Reacting to the certification, a Wal-Mart spokesperson told the Minneapolis Star Tribune: “We have no reason to believe these isolated situations… represent a widespread problem with off-the-clock work.”(Freed & Reenan 2003)

In the recently settled dispute of Wal-Mart with DOL, the case involved 87,000 salaried and hourly employees who were not paid at the proper overtime rates. Hence we may say that the key participants in the lawsuits were the employees themselves backed by the labor unions and the Department of Labor.

Negotiating Techniques

This is a case where Wal-Mart after an internal audit agreed to the accusations that it was violating overtime norms and reached a settlement with the Department of labor. In such a situation a quick settlement was reached where the employees had no say regarding the settlement amount.

DOL and California State Labor Commissioner sued Wal-Mart in an effort to recover underpayments of overtime wages resulting from errors in the retail chain’s payroll processes. Wal-Mart then sought a settlement with the labor dispute settlement bodies that would include the assessment of penalties. Wal-Mart reported errors in calculating overtime payments in early 2005. Most of the errors resulted in small amounts of underpayments to a large number of employees throughout the United States.

Wal-Mart accepted its failure to include periodic bonuses and other earned income in determining some workers’ weekly average hourly pay rate, or “regular rate,” which is used to determine employees’ overtime pay. Wal-Mart also calculated the regular rate on a biweekly instead of a weekly basis and did not properly account for overtime involving some managers-in-training and other associates. The retailer said it has corrected the problem and adopted measures to prevent them from occurring in the future.

Wal-Mart voluntarily informed the labor commissioner that the company had underpaid overtime wages to approximately 50,000 California employees. Approximately 90 percent of the workers and former employees were underpaid by less than $20 over the past five years. Wal-Mart told the state it would quickly correct the payroll calculation problems and it would pay all workers employed in California since Feb. 1, 2002, whatever they were underpaid, no matter how small the amount.

The Labor Commissioner’s office has been working with Wal-Mart to determine precisely how much is owed to the California employees. Each employee is to be fully reimbursed for all wages that exceed what the U.S. Department of Labor determined are owed under federal wage and hour laws (Johnson 2007). Many workers were overpaid as a result of the errors in the computer payroll program, but Wal-Mart will not seek reimbursement from those employees.

Dispute Resolution

Wal-Mart, as a settlement amount, was supposed to pay more than $33 million in back wages to thousands of employees after turning itself into the Labor Department for paying too little overtime over the past five years, according to an agreement announced by the U.S. Department of Labor. The agreement with the Department of Labor covers 86,680 employees who worked for the company from February 1, 2002, to January 19, 2007.

The Labor Department said the settlement would average about $386 in back pay and interest for each of the 87,000 Wal-Mart employees. “These are employees not making a lot of money, and so the fact that they did not get all of the overtime due is a significant problem,” said Steven Mandel, a lawyer for the department’s Fair Labor Standards Division. “$386 is real money.” The settlement included absolutely no penalties, no interest and it is unclear whether the employees are even getting anywhere near what they are actually owed in unpaid overtime.

A case where an employer admits they broke the law and turns themselves in for it would usually be an easy case to win. Also, federal law allows courts to double the number of overtime wages due as a penalty for not paying those wages in the first place. It looks as though these employees are actually receiving less than half of what they are owed.

The California labor commissioner is now apparently negotiating with Wal-Mart to settle overtime claims against the company under California law. It would be in these employees’ best interest to seek out their own personal legal counsel so that they get every penny they deserve.

Resolution Implementation

After the settlement was reached, Wal-Mart apologized to 86,680 of its workers all across America for denying them the overtime wages they were due. The apology was worth five years of back wages, a total of $33.5 million, and means that on average workers who were denied overtime pay will get $375 in back pay. According to the New York Times, 75 workers received more than $10,000, and one lucky worker received more nearly $40,000 in back wages.

Recently, Wal-Mart spokesman assured its “associates” that the overtime system at the retailer “has been fixed,” and that new safeguards at the company will “make sure that these types of errors don’t happen again.” But the company maintains its stance, that it was not a case of violation, but an unintentional error. One company spokesman said the charges were not “particularly unusual violations.” However, the lawsuit charged that Wal-Mart was making illegal calculations because it computed pay on a biweekly rate rather than a weekly rate. The company was also including vacation and sick pay in determining the base hourly rate, which produced a lower hourly rate.

Conclusion

Wage and hour lawsuits are one of the fastest-growing types of employee lawsuits. According to the Department of Labor, employees receiving Fair Labor Standards Act Back wages increased by 27% in 2003, with over 300,000 employees receiving back wages as a result of Wage and Hour Division investigations.

Wal-Mart is a classic case where the company has a steady history of overtime wage violation and has been sued for the same earlier too. But this is a classic case when the company itself agreed to miscalculations and violations due to calculation errors in their payroll process. Wal-Mart discovered the errors during an internal review and voluntarily reported them to the DOL. Under the terms of the consent judgment, Wal-Mart has agreed to pay all back wages the Labor Department has determined are owed for violations identified in the consent judgment to present and former employees, and to pay pre-and post-judgment interest. A third-party administrator will disburse the payments to the affected employees. The agreement resolves only those violations identified in the consent judgment. It does not affect ongoing private litigation or workers’ ability to file complaints with the Labor Department.

With more than 1.2 million domestic employees, Wal-Mart is the largest private employer in the United States and the world’s largest retailer. By proactively approaching the department regarding its errors, the retail giant exhibited its commitment to its employees, serving as a reminder of the importance and benefit of training all supervisory employees on their responsibilities under wage and hour laws. But many critics are not very sure of this and are almost certain of the numerous labor law violations that the company faces and has faced which they continue to practice. But apparently, this dispute was resolved and the law body helped in the dispute resolution process.

Reference

Bianco, A. & Zellner, W. (2003). “Is Wal-Mart Too Powerful?” Business Week, p. 100.

Stein, C. (2003). “Wal-Mart Finds Success, Image Breed Contempt,” Boston GlobeI p. H1. U.S.C.

Associated Press, (2003). “Federal Jury Finds Wal-Mart Guilty in Overtime Pay Case,” Chicago Tribune, Business 3.

Greenhouse, S. (2002). “Suits Say Wal-Mart Forces Workers to Toil Off the Clock,” New York Times A1.

United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) (2004). “Wal-Mart’s War on Workers’ Wages and Overtime Pay,” Web.

Foden-Vencil, K. (2004). “Multiple Lawsuits Accuse Wal-Mart of Violating Workplace Regulations,” NPR Morning Edition.

Freed, G. & Reenan, J. (2003).”Wal-Mart Suit Gets Class Status,” Star Tribune 1D.

Johnson, K. (2007) ^“State labor department sues Wal-Mart”East Bay Business Times. Web.

Wal-Mart apologizes to 86,680 workers for overtime, (2007), Wal-Mart to Pay $34M for Incorrect OT Calculations, Web.

It is important to note that Walmart Corporation is among the largest and most efficient retailers in the market, which primarily focuses on price leadership to achieve its superior competitive advantage over its competitors. The company’s in-depth analysis can be highly beneficial in identifying the core strengths of Walmart’s effectiveness as an enterprise. When it comes to its customer perspective, healthcare organizations can learn about the relevance of focusing on and prioritizing patient satisfaction above all else.

One should be aware that the Walmart Corporation’s customer perspective emphasizes the critical element of price leadership and convenience. The corporation states that “making life easier for busy families includes our commitment to price leadership, which has been and will remain a cornerstone of our business … increasing convenience to save our customers time” (Walmart Inc., 2022, p. 6). Therefore, customer satisfaction is of paramount importance for Walmart, and it is highly aware of what its customers want from it. Healthcare can learn a great deal from the attributes Walmart has since patients come to healthcare organizations to receive high-quality service and care to improve their health and treat their ailments. Thus, healthcare organizations’ entire strategy and patient perspective should be to serve the patient as best they can and build commitment with care quality leadership.

In conclusion, Walmart Corporation’s customer perspective is about customer satisfaction and prioritization on the commitment to core priorities to achieve it. Since the company is aware of and focuses heavily on what makes it appealing to its customers, healthcare organizations should do the same. They should focus on healthcare service quality and patient satisfaction as the main priorities rather than engaging in activities that pursue other seemingly critical objectives.

Reference

Walmart Inc. (2022). Form 10-K [PDF document]. Web.

Introduction

To determine how social media can be used to know more about a company, I monitored Wal-Mart for a whole week to determine the perception of people about the company, its products, and its services. I chose Wal-Mart because of the wide nature of the company and the fact that it covers various countries in and outside Europe.

Collected Data

Walmart @Walmart

Followers- 329, 996

Discussion of the Findings

The company has 329, 996 Twitter followers. Based on the collected data, it was found out that the company could initiate discussions on Twitter for its followers and its customers to see and say something about the tweeted information. According to the information collected, most of what Wal-Mart sought to discuss with its customers were matters relating to promotions and corporate social responsibility. According to this report, it was found out that the company did not have many negative comments from its followers. The customers were observed to encourage this organization in its charitable missions. In this one week survey, there were only good comments about the company.

What the Company Can Do With This Information

The company ought to increase its discussions with the customers where more information is released through Twitter. For example, in this one week survey, the company only dealt with promotional information and corporate social responsibility (Wal-Mart, 2013). It is recommended that the company seek to know more about its different outlets in different regions through various questions in addition to corporate social responsibility and advertisement. This would need more questions added to its discussion. For example, the company can post a message like this one. “What do you have to say about our company in India?” “How do you rate the service offered by the company in this region?” With such follow-ups, the company can know more about its services and what its customers think about them.

According to Sweeney & Craig, any fan witnessed on a company’s social media platform is an indication that he or she is confidently acknowledging as part of the company (Sweeney & Craig). Thus, a company ought to build on its Twitter followings for various benefits organizational benefits like market surveys and product promotions. Because of this, it is right to say that the company is on the right track based on the number of its followers. However, the company ought to build its number of followers to reach out to as many customers as possible. This would help in building the company’s brand in social media (Borges, 2009).

How to Use Twitter To Check Out A Company’s Reputation on the Social Media

Through Twitter discussions about a certain company, it is easy for the management of that company to track its popularity or its bad name as depicted by its followers or other initiated parties.

In conclusion, research was conducted to determine the popularity or bad name of Wal-Mart in social media. Its twitter account was monitored for a whole week, and the final data led to the conclusion that the company has a favorable name on Twitter. As a result, the company needs to increase its number of followers and increase the amount of important information disseminated in its Twitter account.

References

Wal-Mart. (2013). Walmart. Web.

Borges, B. (2009). Marketing 2.0: bridging the gap between seller and buyer through social media marketing. Tucson, AZ: Wheatmark.

Sweeney, S., & Craig, R. (2011). Social media for business: 101 ways to grow your business without wasting your time. Gulf Breeze, FL: Maximum Press.

Introduction

Wal-Mart, the high cost of low price, is a documentary film released in the year 2005. The movie, directed by Robert Greenward, presents the unknown or hidden businesses of one of the world’s largest corporations (Wal-Mart). The picture is made real through interviews with former employees as well as small business entrepreneurs that were associated with the business practices of Wal-Mart. The movie tries to make the viewer understand the impact of the retail giant on people’s personal lives.

The director’s message (point of the movie)

According to the director (Robert Greenward) of the movie Wal-Mart the high cost of low prices, the point he was trying to pass across is that not all that glitters is gold. This is because consumers of Wal-Mart products are some of the most satisfied. This is because they get the best goods, services, and even in some cases, the best after-sales services. However, what is hidden from the ordinary eye are the processes that are involved in bringing about these products as near to them as possible. The director wanted the people to see and hear for themselves firsthand how the operations of Wal-Mart do even affect their lives indirectly in a negative manner.

Analysis

The movie starts with the company’s CEO, lee Scott addressing a convention of company employees. In this address, the CEO praises the company employees for the ‘good job they have been doing. The director tries to portray the impact of the retail giant’s business practices on the general population as well as the environment not only in America but on a global scale.

Among the issues that come up in the ensuing interviews include the issue of poor workers’ rights administration, poor environmental protection policies as well as anti-union tendencies.

Among the concepts /themes found in this film that are found in Schaefer’s and Haaland’s book include the issue of the relation between the firms, the community, and the environment. In this perspective, the movie analyzes the impact of Wal-Mart’s operations on the environment that the people live in (2002).

The concept of pollution is clearly espoused as one of the most adverse that affects the environment of the same consumers of the company products. The issue of land contamination, air pollution, and water pollution are clearly highlighted, especially in Latin America, where the company sources some of its textile products.

In the case of Wal-Mart, it looks like the major role the environment plays’ using Dunlap’s analysis is that of a waste repository center. Thus the issue of environmental justice seems not to have been done since the company activities affect all and sundry. The concept of defended neighborhood environmental justice (Richard T. Schaefer, Bonnie Haaland, and Chapter, p. 15) can serve as an efficient instrument for the realization of the damaging effect of Walmart activities on the populace. According to this concept, environmental justice is a crucial right of the community members, and it must be enforced through legislation and human rights advocacy. But as movie scenes show, it is quite difficult to enforce laws on the capitalist moguls.

Another concept/theme that arises is that of the relation between the government and the private sector. It is argued that the role of the government is to provide the greatest happiness to a majority of the populace(John Locke). Looking at the activities of the Wal-Mart corporation portrayed in the movie, the director leaves us pondering the question of whether our governments are working towards making us happy or not. This is because the government has also failed to protect the small-scale businesspersons who endlessly have to lock their doors whenever Wal-Mart shows up around the corner.

This is even why at the closing moments of the movie, the director attracts the imagination of viewers by putting on community leaders who have vehemently refused the setting up of Walmart stores in their localities and who advise others to do the same.

In turn, it raises a very important issue of monopoly. According to Baran’s (1966) analyses of American society, monopolization is an inevitable characteristic of the economy. The role of the state in curbing monopolization is limited because usually, it represents and protects their interests. It is important to note that the globalization of Walmart activities in the third world countries, depicted in the movie, contributes to the diminishing of the national agriculture sector and the development of the informal economy.

According to Butler (2003), the formation of the informal economic sector has a damaging effect on women, who became the main victims of exploitation. The feminist approach to this matter supposes that the main motor of changing the situation is curbing monopolies by women empowerment and emancipation.

Critique

Although the film does show the negatives of wall-mart, it does less to show us the other side of the story. Although wal-mart does destroy the environment, at least it does have some environmental protection policies. What the director fails to point out is that everyone does disgrace the environment in his/her own way. Even the small-scale producer who is portrayed as the victim is actually not a victim per se since they also contribute to exploitation since, surprisingly, their prices are usually higher than those offered by Wal-mart are. In addition, the director does not show us a sample of the people whose lives may have been positively impacted by the operations of wall-mart.

Conclusion

The movie itself is well directed. It took a lot of analysis to make the movie as real as possible. This is the reason why the director ensures that most of the scenes within the movie encompass former employees who have had it with Wal-Mart. In addition, he incorporates people whose business operations have been affected by the operations of Wal-Mart. In addition, the thaw movie presents the real picture that the audience was required to see.

References

1. Baran, A. Paul. Monopoly Capital: An essay on the American economic and social order. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1966.
2. Butler, Judith., Beck-Gernsheim, Elizabeth. et al. Women & Social Transformation. New York: Counterpoints, 2003.
3. Jeffrey, H. Rattiner Getting Started as a Financial Planner. Bloomberg Press, 2005
4. Richard T. Schaefer, Bonnie Haaland. Sociology: a brief introduction. McGraw-Hill: Ryerson, 2003
5. Spotts, Greg. Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. New York: Disinformation Company, 2005