Walmart: Low Prices, Always

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Problems? Always
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Walmart Warm-Up!
Please get out something to write with.

• - We are going to hand out small slips of paper
• They have 5 different stories on them
• - Circle the ones you believe are true

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Table of Contents

• Background
• Controversy
• Employment Issues
• Production issues

• Walmart supporters
• Anti-Walmart
• Tips
• Opinion/ Conclusion

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Background

• Worked for JC Penney
• Built his first retail store
• called Five and Dime
• The first Walmart was
• built in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962
• Walmart grew into an
• international store from there

Home
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CONTROVERSY
EMPLOYMENT
PRODUCTION
- Low wages - Sexism - Racism - Hours/breaks
- Manufacturing abroad - Prices and local
businesses
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L o w w a g e s

• Employees receive 7.64 - 12.12 an hour
• About 26 less than similar stores (Target)
• - about 10,000 less each year
• CEO of Walmart earns more in an hour
• than employees earn all year

Contr.
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Sexism

• Men vs. women
• 65 female employees
• 33 managers
• Women managers
• 5000 less
• 1/2 years more
• Senior vice president
• Male- 419,435
• Female- 279,772
• Women 5-15 less

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Dukes vs. Walmart
June 2004-California Supreme Court

• Walmart appeals
• March 29, 2011- U.S. Supreme Court

Court in favor of Dukes Walmart violates 1964
Civil Rights Act
Largest civil rights class-action lawsuit in
history 1.6 million women
Betty Dukes- California 2000
I appeal this!
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Reality?

• Dukes still works at Walmart
• Women dont leave jobs
• Opportunity to step outside door get a job
• With/without college education/work experience
• Family-oriented corporation
• Lures women
• Support families
• Rarely can pay babysitter
• Christian family corporation
• Rarely Sundays off

Contr.
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Racism

• Family store
• Smiley faces on price tags
• Rollback prices
• Different ethnicities in commercials
• Minority groups
• Hispanic
• 2006-Fresno, CA
• African American
• 2009-Louisiana

Contr.
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Unfair Breaks

• Employees complain of little to no breaks given
  to them
• Workers reported that they were encouraged to
  work overtime
• In a study for a regular work week for 25,000
  Walmart employees
• there were 1,371 instances where employees
• worked way too late into the evening
• worked through school hours
• too many hours a day
• Verette Richardson, a former cashier from Kansas
  City quotes

Cashiers sometimes urinated on themselves
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Sweatshops?

• - Walmart clothing brand Faded Glory traced to
  Bangladesh
• Were made in a Garments Factory where there are
  the following
• conditions

• Workers work 19 hours days
• earn 20 per month
• Under countrys minimum wage of 24 per month
• Frequently punished verbally and physically
• - Beaten for their mistakes
• Must stand for hours as punishment for being
  late to work

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Prices

• - Walmarts book prices put small
• local stores out of business
• Clothing prices so low other clothing
• stores have to compete

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Walmart Supporters?

• Low prices
• Poor-working classes
• Middle-class families
• Minorities
• Cant afford to stop buying
• Walmart business affiliates
• Board of directors
• Senior management
• Other businesses

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Walmart supporters
Home

• U.S. Chamber of Commerce
• Intel
• Bank of America
• Del Monte Foods
• FedEx
• Microsoft
• Costco

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Anti-Walmart
Home

• Unions
• United Food and Commercial Workers International
  Union
• Consumers Union
• Public Citizens
• National Organization for Women
• Local businesses suppliers
• French Thomson TV plant (Circleville, Ohio)
• Environmentalists
• Sierra Club

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What can you do to help?
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Find stores like Walmart

• Research how they impact society environment
• If they happen to help out and not cause problems
  for people, shop there

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Buy from organic markets
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Try to quit smoking

1. Buy all from Walmart except one product
2. Next week, buy all from Walmart except two
   products
3. Gradually buy all products from other stores
   break Walmart addiction

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Consider the moral factor

• Is it really beneficial to be supporting a store
  that has so many lawsuits and problems?
• Is it really good to be driving other local
  mom-and-pop vendors out of business?
• How about supporting low wages paid to local
  people, like cousins, neighbors, co-workers?

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Opinion/Conclusion

• People cant afford to buy anywhere else
• Sustainability
• Fairness
• Low prices