Introduction:

Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in the year 1962. The company has grown exponentially over the years, and is now the largest private employer and largest grocery retailer in the United States, owning over 8500 stores in 15 countries. Incorporated in 1969, it soon began to be included in the New York stock exchange, only further feeding its extreme growth. By 1975 it existed in 8 states, and on the store’s 25^th anniversary, there were 1198 stores and 200,000 employees, and they were making $15.9 billion in sales each year. Every week, over 100 million people step into one of Wal-Mart’s 3500+ stores just here in the US. They now have 1.2 million employees just here in the states. Obviously, Wal-Mart has a reach on the United States market, as well as worldwide, that is much larger than any single company. This influence has had both positives and negatives on the American market, bringing to the plate extremely low price tags, especially to lower socio-economic neighborhoods, as well as a trail of damage caused by overworking and underpaying of many of their employees. Although their products may not be of the highest quality, they are almost always the cheapest, which brings them much more attention than most other stores. Overall, Wal-Mart has become the largest and most influential company in the entire world, and their company essentially can decide the fate of the American market.

Wal-Mart: Destroying America on PhotoPeach

Opinion: 

In my mind, Wal-Mart is more devastating to the United States than it is helpful. There are a few main reasons that I believe this is so. The strongest reason is the least recognized to the majority of shoppers: strong mistreatment of employees. Employees are underpaid, and oftentimes Wal-Mart will freeze all raises in fear of looking like they have “bribed” some of the workers. This is really just a clever tactic to scare employees out of seeking higher wages. In addition, employees are given little to no benefit. The majority of Wal-Mart employees are encouraged to go on welfare, as well as collecting food stamps and coupons, to make up for the lack of benefits and pay they receive. Wal-Mart essentially wants the government agencies to supply their workers with the benefits that should really be supplied by Wal-Mart themselves. Wal-Mart alone, since its founding in 1962, has cost tax payers $1,557,000,000 in supplying employees with medical and welfare benefits. In addition, they prevent employees from joining labor unions. Although this is extremely illegal and against the workers’ rights, Wal-Mart has been found installing illegal surveillance items to track conversations on labor unions and threats against the company. With a stack of applications always waiting to be taken on, any workers found plotting against Wal-Mart are fired. They also under staff their stores; workers are forced to do more work than many are capable of, and for little pay. Managers are taught how to cheat employees out of overtime pay, as if the low pay of Wal-Mart employees previously had been enough. Wal-Mart has also blatantly denied positions for people based on their race and sex, and even though these workers have put in the necessary work to earn these positions, they are still denied.

In addition to unfair treatment of their workers, Wal-Mart has been given an unfair advantage over small family businesses that are simply being crushed under their mighty foot. Essentially, towns and cities have been offering large subsidies to the company to build in the area. Once Wal-Mart moves in, these companies instantly lose huge amounts of customers. With Wal-Mart’s low wages and understaffing allowing them to offer hugely lower prices, local businesses are choked out within a few months. Many have no choice but to shut down, and this hurts local families who are then forced to work at the Wal-Mart and take the low pay that is offered, because there are really no other options around. The subsidies Wal-Mart receives are often given instead of money being provided for public services, such as schools, police forces, fire fighters, and much more. In many of the towns, schools are forced to SHUT DOWN just so that Wal-Mart can receive these subsidies. And although Wal-Mart promises to give back to the community, it seems that almost always they seem to find a way to avoid doing so. The usual tactic is for the store to stay in the town until they reach their promised date of giving back, and then moving less than a few miles just across town lines to continue to suck off of the town’s resources and communities. There are around 27,000,000 square feet of empty Wal-Mart buildings that have been built and abandoned just in the US. And these buildings are too big for any other practical use; instead they just sit there and collect dust until eventually they are leveled. They have also been found to blatantly ignore the EPA’s requirements for environmental safety. All in all, I believe Wal-Mart is more of a destructive force than a community-focused company.