Walmart At Walmart Live Below The Poverty Line

Karen Olsson believes that Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer company, under pays their employees for the amount of work they do daily. They do not offer good working conditions for their employees or enough medical benefits to support themselves and their families. Sebastian Mallaby says that Wal-Mart is not wrong for the way that they run their business; he feels as though Wal-Mart does their consumers a favor by keeping the wages low and offering “low prices” (620). It’s just business! They have to do what it takes to remain the world’s top retailer and continue to, “enrich shareholders, and put rivals out of business” (620). Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby both address the topic of big

I would like to know about why isn’t more being done about the way Walmart manipulates its employees and the system. In order to make a change, people need to take a stand, and not just the employees. Unfortunately, the protests the employees partake in are not enough, they have been protesting for years and we have seen no change. I think a major reason we haven’t seen change is because people feel as if it’s not our responsibility. We aren’t employees of Walmart, we aren’t being forced to work when were not on the clock, we’re not the ones being worked through our breaks, were not being abused if we don’t meet our jeans quota for the day, so why would we care? In reality, it is our problem. We people have a voice, and were not using it to

Over the years, Walmart has been at the center of controversies with regards, its low wages; overtime pay abuses, employee benefits, gender discrimination, negative impact on small business, immense dealings with China, tax avoidance and much more (Crofoot, 2012). Employees have been dissatisfied with these issues but seem as if they can’t voice it

The treatment of workers is a common topic for Karen Olsson and Sebastian Mallaby as they battle wages, welfare and Medicaid, and settle to agree on Wal-Mart unions. In the discussion of Wal-Mart in Karen Olssons articled titled “Up Against Wal-Mart”, she battles the many things Wal-Mart is doing wrong. Sebastian Mallaby, on the other hand, argues the many things Wal-Mart is doing right in his article “Progressive Wal-Mart. Really.” It is important to consider both opinions in both of these articles to see if Wal-Mart is doing the most for the money or if they are slacking off because it could be effecting what Wal-Mart is doing for you.

Yes, major corporations like Wal-Mart are responsible for the working poor in this country. These companies make millions of dollars and and yet some of the companies only pay their associates a little above minimum wage. In The United States people are deprived at the bottom of the income ladder of medical care, food, affordable housing and transportation. Raising the minimum wage could help people stay above poverty level. I believe that poverty is a political, economical and morale issue because of the wage structures because of big companies and the government is not doing enough to force these companies to pay the workers higher wages. Because of the rising prices of economical needs in America and not enough income to provide for the

In her U.S. Catholic article, “Is Wal-Mart number one? Maybe when it comes to mistreating its workers” Caitlyn Schmidt discusses how Wal-Mart continues to manipulate its workers everyday. Wal-Mart neglects to compensate hundreds of thousands of their workers with health care benefits. The CEO of Wal-Mart, Michael Duke, earns $35 million a year while the standard worker makes $8.81 per hour. With this being said, Duke gains more money an hour than any worker brings in a year. Each year Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. faces thousands of lawsuits from prohibiting workers to unionize. Having already acquired a poor stature, nobody can oppose how abhorrent Wal-Mart respects their workers. In other words, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. brings in millions of

Low wages and the insurance coverage at Walmart locations have been a problem. “A report from the National Employment Law Project states that the low prices at Walmart provided to the customers have a hidden cost to the workers”(Jamieson). To have Walmart’s low prices and still have a profit they have to pay low wages to their employees. It’s low wages have an effect on all the 2.2 million workers Wal-Mart has.This makes it harder for their employees to buy food, housing and to pay other necessary bills. “Walmart has lowered the wages the employees get by hiring people that don’t work for the company to do their work ”(Jamieson). “The employees at Walmart do hard work and most of their employees don’t know about the workers right abuse. They don’t know where they can get compensation from the wrong things Walmart has been doing to them”(Jamieson). This is a problem because if the employee

Walmart should develop a strategy for employee compensation, benefits, and programs to support, recognize, and respect the employees of the company. The workers should feel like they’re appreciated for their hard work and rewarded for their work performance.

The success of companies in today's market place is a process that involves the way business practitioners manage its workers and the financial resources and structures. The management of employees, structures, and financial resources includes the development and establishment of effective compensation strategy. Actually, the lack of a sound compensation system has negative impacts on the company's ability to recruit and retain competent and best-qualified employees. Consequently, compensating workers represents an important practice of a company's human resource management (Martocchio, 2013). Wal-Mart is not only a cultural but also a business phenomenon that operates in a competitive environment that is very unique. The company has grown steadily since its inception to an extent that it has become the number one ranked firm on Fortune 500 for four consecutive years. The success of the company is attributed to sound business practices and strategies throughout the years. Currently, the firm has over 1.3 million employees in America, making it the largest employer in the United States. In addition to being the biggest corporation worldwide, Wal-Mart's ability to attract and retain qualified employees is based on its compensation strategy.

Wal-Mart has adopted a business model strategy of using low labor costs which is a threat to gains won historically by unions. It has also adopted a strategy of issuing threats to workers who support unionization. The strategy requires a company that honors its worker compensation policies to the latter. It means it will continue to hurt workers since the company has failed to honor workers compensation law policies. The compensation policies of the company do not match the strategy. The company has a very bad policy of delaying workers payments and

Organizations that are committed to retaining good workers must also provide adequate compensation that allows employees to feel the organization cares about their needs. In order for Wal-Mart to remain competitive they must offer a compensation package that employees feel is fair and comparable to other organizations. If employees feel that the organization does not care or place any value on their individual needs employees may not remain with the organization and/or adapt the desired behaviors the organization requires, to provide superior customer service.

Wal-Mart need to raise employees’ wages according to each person’s position and from location to location. “Under pressure from its own workers and the public, Walmart stated that it would also increase wages for its 500,000 lowest-paid U.S. workers. In April 2015, the nation’s largest employer hiked its minimum wages to $9 an hour; another increase to $10 an hour will take effect in February 2016 for all workers who have completed a 6-month training period” (Retrieved from www.demos.org). (Amy Traub, 2015) Even though the wages improvement, Wal-Mart still a way far of providing the workers the deserved wages because of the insufficient working hours. Many employees are working less hours, which make it difficult for them to reach the basic standard of living. Therefore, Wal-Mart has to increase the number of the working hours to the regular forty hours. “At both state and federal levels, there have been some efforts to address the problem of hours and scheduling. The San Francisco Board of Supervisors in November passed a law requiring retailers to post schedules two weeks in advance and to give any extra hours that become available to existing workers, rather than hire new workers” (Retrieved from www.nytimes.com). (Tabuchi, 2015) So, more hours mean more savings

When one considers Wal-Mart, their initial thoughts are usually not very distasteful, and convenience is quick to come to mind. Convenience should be considered a four-letter word for most corporations since the cost of convenience is so much that it does not take a world-class poker player to know the odds of coming out ahead are zilch. In order to make convenience a profitable business, Wal-Mart has to hide the shortcuts behind the façade of convenience. Once we get passed the faced that allows reduced prices, a one stop shop, and price matching, we get to Wal-Mart 's massive file of wrong doings. Wal-Mart imposes severe conditions and bully tactics upon its employees and even its outsourced providers. Throughout the research of this paper it has become obvious that the benefits and money in the pockets of shareholders greatly outweigh the costs of proper security policy guidelines, cost of proper benefits, and the cost of the lives of the Wal-Mart blue vest wearing employees versus corporate Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart wanted to show appreciation for their customers, then they would re-invest in their employees and the establishment of providing proper safety measures, as well as health insurance that is stable. Instead, Wal-Mart offers laughable settlements to workers in a foreign country that were crushed in a building while showing loyalty to providing their products to their bargain shoppers, or forced customers due to destruction of local competition through price

Up through February 2011, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. used the profit-sharing plan in which the company matched 4% of employee contribution. The CEO at the time, Michael Duke, pledged to reduce accumulated expenses and increase net income from decreasing sales by implementing the use of the company 401(k) plan. The employees can enroll into the 401(k) plan as part of the company’s retirement package. U.S. employees are approved for 401(k) eligibility upon hire and able to beginning contributing to the plan immediately. Puerto Rican employees also are able to enroll in the offered 401(k) plan

For this final research paper I chose Wal-Mart organization as my company of interest. The research conducted for this paper includes eight references supporting statements pertaining to the Wal-Marts compensation and benefits plans. In the paper I briefly discussed some financial and health benefits offered by Wal-Mart. During the discussion of the financial benefits we touched on the 401(k) plan, the Employee Stock Option Plan, and the Military Differential pay. I pointed out how Wal-Marts Military Differential Pay is above most companies as they pay employee’s full salary if they are called to active duty as most companies only pay the difference of what the employee is making with the military and would be making with the organization (Jathar, 2013). I also attempted to show how Wal-Marts health benefits compared to other companies by discussing their Health Insurance plan and their Health Reimbursement Account. I pointed out how Wal-Mart associates are paying on average $7000 more annually than other employees with similar Health Reimbursement Account. I think the only way to fix this is for our government to take the same action as many of our sister countries and at a minimum mandate a cap that employer’s can have employee’s pay in to these accounts. In all I feel from the research and past personal experience that Wal-Mart is a great organization to work for even with the few needed improvements.