Thanksgiving weekend, Wal-Mart gleefully became one of the only big box retailers to surpass expected holiday sales.
Apparently, the recent documentary “Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price” didn’t achieve its intended outcome. Wal-Mart sales are rapidly rising, and company executives are working hard to promote a friendly image. With Wal-Mart now poised to become more successful than ever, it seems that the nation is slowly forgetting the Wal-Mart hullabaloo of days gone by.
Luckily for everyone, some people haven’t forsaken their fight against Wal-Mart. The document “Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart” was created in February 2004, by Democratic staff from the U.S. House of Representatives. What it says ought to make every consumer wary of Wal-Mart.
The report explained that Wal-Mart has been repeatedly charged with violating workers’ rights through such actions as firing workers who attempted to unionize. At one point, Wal-Mart even created “A Manager’s Toolbox to Remaining Union Free.”
If workers are threatened to abstain from unionizing, they lose out on the benefits and comfortable workplace experience they are due. When employees cannot band together in a union and demand fair treatment and wages, managers and executives hold all the power.
Not only do Wal-Mart workers receive an exceedingly low salary thanks to anti-unionizing efforts, some workers have been forced into labor off-the-clock. In one class-action lawsuit, it was revealed that employees were asked to work through their breaks and even after their shift had ended and their time card punched out. Overtime is not always paid as such, and some Wal-Mart managers have been accused of erasing hours from employees’ time cards. Wal-Mart stores often encourage a high turnover rate, so that long-time employees are replaced before they can receive much-deserved raises.
Although these instances of unfair labor practices occurred at individual Wal-Mart stores, the company still needs to be held accountable. Local store managers only cut corners with employee pay because of Wal-Mart’s insistence that labor expenses are kept as low as possible.
Besides bottom-level wages and off-the-clock work, Wal-Mart stores keep labor costs down by failing to provide some of their poorest employees with health insurance. Employees who do receive health insurance often have to grapple with the cost of higher-than-average co-pays and deductibles, often forcing these workers to forgo the option of purchasing health insurance from the workplace altogether.
And who picks up the tab on workers who, by general standards, should be insured by their employer? Local taxpayers who give money to support public health care programs, which then benefit the workers who should have been covered by their employer in the first place. The money saved at Wal-Mart is hardly money earned, because the consumer is paying for Wal-Mart employees’ health insurance.
When a Wal-Mart comes to town, smaller businesses are forced to close because they cannot compete with Wal-Mart’s prices. One reason small businesses can’t compete is that those businesses do not engage in unethical price-cutting practices. When businesses that treat their employees well are forced to close, those employees can end up seeking jobs at Wal-Mart and experiencing all of the problems that go along with working for a cost-cutting corporation.
Wal-Mart’s problems even span to the national level, when the company uses its business clout to demand extremely low prices on goods produced overseas. If companies in China, from whom Wal-Mart imports a large amount of products, are unable to turn a profit, those overseas businesses are forced to cut labor expenses. In its demand for the lowest prices possible, Wal-Mart is literally creating sweatshops.
As if looking out for the common good of humankind is not reason enough to avoid shopping at Wal-Mart, consider this: Many Wal-Mart products are actually priced higher than at other comparable retailers. The goal of Wal-Mart is to pull in customers with a few bargain deals, then hope that those shoppers pick up other items on their list that are not priced so low. If a consumer at Wal-Mart is not wise to the average price of, say, light bulbs, the customer ends up paying more than they should.
As the holiday shopping season gets bustling, remember that the low prices offered by Wal-Mart are not as low as they seem. By supporting the Wal-Mart company, you are causing financial losses to community taxpayers, supporting illegal labor practices, condoning sweatshops and, thanks to Wal-Mart pricing schemes, possibly paying above average retail for some products. Money is power, and Wal-Mart has shown time and time again that it is undeserving of such power.

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