Employees Subdue Gunman; Fired

In mid February of this year, 4 Walmart employees, Lori Poulsen, Justin Richins, Shawn Ray and Gabriel Stewart, were on the clock at a Walmart location in Utah when they noticed a man, Trent Longton, attempting to steal from the store. When confronted by Poulsen, who was in charge of Asset Protection, Longton withdrew a loaded fire-arm, threatening the safety of those in the store.

The four employees acted in a way that was both brave and understandable given the situation: They subdued the gunman and removed the threat. And although they may have just saved lives (both their own or those of customers), they were promptly fired by Walmart for breaching the "code of conduct" for these situations, which states that should a customer become violent, employees should run to a safe place and then call authorities.

Walmart's official stance is that the actions of the 4 workers "put the lives of customers and employees in jeopardy." Although, considering that Longton is a convicted felon, it seems to me that lives were already in jeopardy, especially since Longton was forbidden by law to possess a fire arm in the first place.

Although this is an extreme case, it is interesting to see how quickly Walmart can throw long-time employees to the curb, even those who are essentially heroes. Stewart, who had been with Walmart for nearly 12 years before his termination, says that he felt betrayed by the actions of the store.

Walmart Corporate "Fact Sheet"

On their Corporate Website, Walmart provides a list of different fact sheets which detail different aspects of various charities and help funds which they have been a part of. Interestingly, and in contradiction to many arguments against Walmart, the opening sentence on the page says:

"At Walmart, we believe in a philosophy of operating globally and giving back locally. We are proud to support organizations that are helping people live better."

Whether or not their "charitable nature" is redemption for the various ways Walmart harms communities is up to the reader to decide. I just think it's interesting how Walmart presents itself on its website.

Walmart's Plan for a Healthy America (Continued from 3/18)

Earlier this month I mentioned the deal between Walmart stores and Michelle Obama to make healthy food alternatives more affordable in an effort to combat nationwide obesity.

An article found on Walmart's website, discusses the details of that deal, specifically what Walmart plans to do in order to make their plan a reality. Their "5-point" plan (found here) consists of several key points, including lowering the sodium content of packaged foods, creating a seal to identify healthy alternatives, and educating shoppers on shopping healthily.

Wal-Mart v. Dukes: The Basics

An article published by the National Womens Law Center earlier this month (Found Here) details a supreme court case involving Walmart and female employees who felt discriminated on the job. The case, which will go before the court on March 29th, will determine the future of women working at Walmart, at least for the time being.

The bill failed to pass last year, so the lawsuit could go either way. However, an interesting part of the article which I noticed was the fear of retaliation these women have when asking about their pay.

This is interesting because a key focus in Walmart's employee training is on their stated "No retaliation" policy, in which employees are encouraged to come forward and talk to management without fear of being fired or punished in other ways.

This article also points to a solution to the issue of big-box stores: Government Regulations. Because of the impacts these stores have, I am surprised the government hasn't stepped in more than they have to reduce some of the impacts (Specifically the environmental ones) which these stores have.

Walmart Teams Up With Michelle Obama to Fight Obesity

This interesting Video (Found Here) is a clip from a news report which talks about a surprising partnership between Michelle Obama and Walmart to fight increasing obesity in the nation.

Because Walmart is the largest retailer of groceries in the United States, they have lowered prices on healthy food items to make them more affordable. Although this could be a major risk taken by the company, the predicted outcome is that Walmart's competitors will in turn lower their prices to remain competitive.

This is a refreshing example of ways in which Walmart is working to help the community, and while it may not out-weigh the documented negatives which we have seen, it is a step in the right direction.

Man Wins Lawsuit Against Walmart After Injury On Job

A recent success story of an individual suing Walmart occurred earlier this month, when an employee filed a lawsuit against the corporation when he was "Significantly physically impaired" while on the job. Although the article (found here) was somewhat sparse on the details of who this man was, the store he worked at was in Chubbuck and he was awarded $1.6 million.

After working at two separate Walmart locations, my experience with the store chain is that employee safety comes second to productivity and profit. During my time at Walmart I witnessed many instances of employees being put at risk through the cutting of corners or negligence. I'm glad to see light being shed on this particular issue, though it is unfortunate the man had to be injured for it to happen.

Wal-Mart Employees speak out about low wages

Al Norman Gives Key-note Address

From Youtube.com:

This is Al Norman's keynote address to a rally to stop a Wal-Mart supercenter in Hadley, MA, and to protest corporate practices that hurt women, workers and the environment. Several hundred activists participated in this November 19, 2005 rally outside the Wal-Mart store in Hadley, MA.

Wal Mart: Bad for the Employee

It's no secret that Wal Mart is not typically the desired place to work, but it would seem that in the last decade or so Wal Mart has been stiff-arming its employees, particularly in regards to wages and working conditions.

For example, in 2001, the average pay for a Wal-Mart Sales Clerk was $8.23 per hour.  This translated into an average yearly salary of $13,861.  However, at the time the federal poverty line was $14,630.  Additionally, Wal Mart does not offer decent employee benefits, and seems to actively encourage its employees to seek out medicade and other national aid programs in order to compensate.  Additionally, while they do offer medical insurance, it is very expensive, costing around $70 a paycheck.

Wal Mart increased the pay for new employees by 6% in 2006, but they also instituted a cap for how much the older veteran workers could make.  This was seen as an attempt to push older employees out of the company, but Wal Mart's official statement on the matter is that it was necessary to remain competitive.

Wal Mart also seems to follow a lot of questionable practices in attempts to keep costs down, many of which they are paying for now with high-profile lawsuits.  Wal Mart encourages "off-the-clock" work, which is work done when the employee is not clocked in, and thus not getting paid.  This essentially gives Wal Mart free labor, and they have been sued multiple times by angry employees because of it.

Focusing the Argument

According to facts and statistics gathered from the website Big Box Tool Kit, Big-Box stores play a huge part as far as pollution is concerned. The specific facts can be found here:

http://www.bigboxtoolkit.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&layout=blog&id=36&Itemid=62

As seen on the above website, parking lots are a major cause of pollution, since they block the earth's natural ability to absorb and filter pollutants from rain-water. As a result, this dirty water ends up in streams, lakes and rivers, doing untold damage to the local environments.  The water contains significantly higher levels of Nitrogen and Zinc, which wreak havoc on the ecosystems around these bodies of water.

Big-Box stores also generate a huge amount of car traffic, with a single 200,000 square foot Walmart (the average size for this type of store) generating up to 10,000 car trips in a single day.  Fast-food chains also generate a high-volume of traffic, and these tend to spring up in areas with a Big-Box store, compounding the issue.

Additionally, several studies have been conducted in the last 2 decades which indicate that the introduction of a Walmart or other "Category Killer" chain store typically has drastic effects on local businesses.  In short, businesses already in an area when a Walmart springs up find that they can no longer compete with the larger chain’s lower prices, damaging business. 

Also, a study concluded that of every $100 spent at a chain store, only about $45 gets put back into the local economy.  The rest is moved into the corporation elsewhere.  This is in contrast to the $65 which gets returned by small business owners.  In short, money spent with smaller businesses tends to stay local, and vice versa.

What's Going On?

Although Big-box stores have been around since the 1800’s, it wasn’t until the arrival of Wal*Mart in 1962 that they began to have noticeable effects on their communities, the nation and the world.  For those of you who may not know, a Big-box store is a large retail store which often caters to needs other than groceries and is part of a chain. 

Big-box stores emphasize quantity over quality wither their products, and while this is not to say they don’t offer quality goods, they can offer them cheaper than competitors because their merchandise isn’t necessarily top of the line.  Because of this, the big draw of Big-box stores is the low prices and emphasis on getting “more for less.”

Although there are literally dozens of Big-box chains nation-wide (Kroger, Safeway, Home-Depot, etc.), for the purposes of this blog I will be focusing on one single chain: Wal*Mart.  In 2010 Wal*

Mart was deemed by Forbes magazine as the “Larges Public Corporation” in the world, and is the United State’s leading grocery retailer.  In total, Wal*Mart has somewhere around 8500 store locations, and is spread across 15 separate nations. 

At this point you might be asking, “So what’s the problem, here?”  And on the surface it seems like there isn’t anything wrong.  After all, who doesn’t like saving money buying what they need?  Unfortunately, what we save in money at the check-out line could be costing the community, and even consumers, in ways we probably wouldn’t have imagined. 

Obviously it’s no secret that smaller businesses have been run out of business before by Big-box stores like Wal*Mart.  They aren’t as big, so the smaller store usually can’t offer such good deals, and oftentimes will go bankrupt.  However, there are other issues at work here, such as poor customer service, how employees are treated, and even some environmental problems.  All of these issues and more will be explored throughout the semester.

By now you’re probably asking yourself, “How does this affect me?”  That’s hard to say for sure at this point, but it’s not hard to see the people who are affected.  People like the owners of the small stores in competition with Wal*Mart, or customers who prefer effective customer service.  Even the employees of Wal*Mart and similar stores are involved, from the lowly cashier all the way up into corporate. 

So I hope this gives you an idea of the issue we are facing here.  Over the course of the semester I will explore each of the issues above extremely thoroughly, and hope that by the end It’s easy to see how this issue affects you too.