Trends in Population Growth and Diversity

The class action lawsuit claims that Walmart intentionally locked employees in its stores after the employees were off the clock. During those unpaid overtime hours, employees were expected to stock merchandise, count registers, etc., and they were not allowed to leave the store. The amount of compensation for the employees is unknown but, as a result, Walmart was forced to change their policies about overtime hours.

It is considered as a milestone because Walmart has been trying every trick in the book to avoid unionization of its workforce. The working conditions in most of the Walmart stores where poor and sometimes they force their workers to overtime, sometimes they reduce the normal working hours without consent from the employees, they are also accused of gender discrimination. They were able to do all these activities because of the low bargain power of the employees. The right to certify union in response to unfair labour practices are also incorporated after this incident So unionization of their store is a historic event and it

Wal-Mart had been criticized for its record in employee relations. Wal-Mart had no unions, despite

Walmart however claims that their managers can handle complaints and grievance and that their employees do not need to pay a union to advocate for them.

In the United States Walmart effects negatively retail worker wages as well as retail employment. In addition, University of California researchers found that workers in Walmart earn on average 12.4 % less than retail workers as a whole (UNI Global Union, 2012). Walmart’s workers demonstrated thier dissatisfaction with working conditions and low wages by protesting on Black Friday 2012, which is the day the company is making the biggest profit. Walmart workers stood up and more than 1,000 demonstrations in a hundreds encouraging Walmart to act ethicaly towards them. For workers protesting it was a huge risk as they are oficially not protected by any labour union (Progress, 2012). Another evidence that Walmart treats its employees unfairly are discrimination claims. Women workers in California pursue discrimination claims saying that Walmart systematically treats them unfairly. According to women workers retail giant denied to pay raises and promotions due to gender bias (Levine & Gupta, 2011).

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. Walmart is the biggest importer of foreign products in the United States. For this, Walmart created a code of conduct for its foreign suppliers as “Standards for Suppliers”. To meet this code of conduct foreign supplier need to follow all the local law, rules and regulations of country and the working condition of industry like pay, hiring forced labor, child labor and discrimination. This code of conduct states Walmart may make on-site inspection to the foreign products that is going to be imported in Walmart USA by which it can cancel or reject the low standard product while site inspection. These are included in Walmart’s supply contract with its suppliers in foreign countries. The foreign workers who are importing goods to Walmart from China, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Swaziland and Nicaragua sued Walmart to the US district court alleging that they were third party beneficiaries to the Walmart’s contract to its foreign suppliers that due to the Walmart’s breach of standard they were due damages from Walmart. Their employees violated the standards because of Walmart failed to investigate on working condition of foreign suppliers. Even knowing the standards were being violated Walmart failed to implement the standards mentioned there in contract. The U.S. court held that the litigants were not intended third party beneficiaries to Walmart’s contract to its foreign suppliers and terminated the

The plaintiffs involved in the Dukes case claimed to have endured sexist comments while receiving lower pay and watching their male counterparts advance at a quicker rate. (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). They also claimed that the male dominated departments such as sporting goods, hardware, and garden, generally paid higher wages while offering more opportunities for advancement (Bernardin & Russell, 2013). Statistically, women in hourly positions at Wal-Mart make $1,100.00 less annually than male hourly employees, and the salaried gap is $14, 500 a year (Hart, 2006).

Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. is the world 's largest retail enterprise, with total revenue of $421.8 billion and a net income of $16.4 billion in 2011. 1 It is also the world 's largest employer, with 2.1 million employees worldwide in 2010 2, not including workers hired by its providers. In my opinion, Wal-Mart provides a clear illustration through which to look at how many multinational companies (MNCs) take part in an illegal and unethical behavior. They use their bargaining power and market control to pressure countries to overlook environmental degradation and violation of national labor laws. They dictate expected pricing for products, particularly through imports from overseas countries. Labor is fulfilled mostly by underage and underpaid employees. In the United States, since 2005, Wal-Mart has paid about $1 billion in damages to U.S. employees in six different cases related to unpaid work. 3 Furthermore, Wal-Mart opposes any form of collective action, even when employees are not seeking unionization, but simply more respect. 4 The fact that Wal-Mart opposes unions exist. The company has a long history of fighting them, to the point of closing stores after employees organize. Managers have been instructed to talk to their teams about why unions are so unwanted in their business. Overseas, the company was involved in a series of scandals, including multiple cases of bribery. In April 2012, The New York Times published a story that

Wal-Mart would rather bribe factories money to move on and brush it under the carpet instead of taking responsibility for their involvement. So, one would have to think this is not due to the lack of knowledge of the practices in the factories, but the choice to ignore and not care of these practices. In 2012, Wal-Mart choose to “make payments to Mexican officials of more than $24 million noted by The New York Times and in Asia there were 90 reports within a year and half period” (Sethi) to cover situations up demonstrating that money talks.

However, in 2008, there was a change from $8.63 to 10.83 per hour. Managers at Walmart do not respect employee's rights, and they sometimes treat employees in a way that is against the law in the United States. Managers even sometimes force employees to work off the clock and skip lunch, and it is again against the law. The CEO needs to pay attention of such a situation. Because of the labor-related issues, there were several lawsuits against the company in 2008 in the following States: Colorado, Minnesota, Oregon, etc. There was also a gender discrimination situation where Women claimed in 2007 they were not treated fairly by the company. Even though people consider Walmart the company that employs more than 1.4 employees, it does not pay good salary to its employees. It is against the law to treat people in such a way. In 2002, Walmart used a type of competition that was not normal

The first way Walmart shows gender discrimination is by giving the female workers reduced amount salary compare to the male workers. Remember these male workers do a similar or the same job as the female workers who work at Walmart. A good example of this is a male cashier who works at Walmart gets about fourteen thousand five hundred and twenty-five dollars a year. On the other hand a female cashier at Walmart gets thirteen thousand eight hundred thirty-one dollars a year. These salary allocation system by the middle management of Walmart shows that they don’t care about the female workers. This gender salary discrimination is unethical from a moral standpoint. It is morally unethical because Walmart is stealing money directly from the female workers who really deserve it. On the other hand this is also legally wrong because there is law put in place by

Wages and benefits are not the only complaints Wal-Mart is now facing. Recently, Wal-mart was accused of denying women equal pay and opportunities for promotion (Bianco, 2003). Wal-Mart attempts to distract from their past and present diversity issues by devoting an entire section of their webpage to this subject but until Wal-Mart can show statistical proof reflecting their claims of fair wages, good benefits, and equal treatment, the complaints by the unions and consumers will continue. These upper level management decisions are having a negative impact on the company and providing an unhealthy organizational culture for the organization.

In the legal world, the 21st century is regarded as the era of litigation over the super retailer Wal-Mart (Brunn 2007). In the America public record, searching for Wal-Mart as a party in a lawsuit produced 3,034 reported cases, and a great amount of these lawsuits are related to its relationship with employees. The range of employment-based cases includes race and gender discrimination, unjust termination, compensation and minimum wages. Although as the largest corporate retailer in America, Wal-Mart’s size, strength and long-term interest provide it more opportunities to influence the legal system and nudge the law in a direction favourable to it (Brunn 2007), these legal issues put Wal-Mart in a trouble situation and stimulate it to change its MCS from a paternalistic attitude and company culture approach

With every company there come strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats and Wal-mart is no exception. Wal-mart sits at the number one spot when it comes to retail businesses but they have had many issues; in particular labor law violations because they did not allow their employees to take required lunch and meal breaks.

Wal-Mart is certainly credited with changing the retail world as we know it with its low prices and big stores with huge selections but it has come at a price. They have struggled with issues that question the ethics as a company and legal issues that question how they manage people. These issues will continue to hurt their organization unless a complete change in management thinking and actions are changed. As a socially responsible organization, their management planning in this area is second to none. Lets hope they take the same effort in improving their image when it comes to ethics and legal issues.