Criticism as the main challenge of Walmart

The foundation of Wal-Mart is associated to Sam Walton who used to stay in Rogers back in 1962 and the focus at initial stages was on working on rural areas and making the key competitors be business-like Kmart and Sears (Magretta, 2002). As it was growing it started other methods of retailing like Sam’s Club discounts warehouses and supercenters in 1988. In the same decade, it opened merchandise supercenters and grocery and thus turning to be one of the largest groceries in the state. The popularity of Walmart in united is linked to factors of service like cost control through low-cost imports, direct mail advertising and efficiency in transporting ordered products to customers. From this period it became an international company existing in other parts of the country like Mexico, China, Canada, German, and the UK.

Advocates’ who represent small towns have been protesting against the company for killing the upcoming businesses in the same country through low prices. Major criticisms have been based on external sourcing of products, environmental policies, security of the company and the use of public subsidies. A good example was in 2005 when the labor unions formed an organization and social sites to attack the company (Chan, 2005). Some of the established organizations include United Food and Commercial Workers and Service Employee International Union. In reciprocating to this the company towards the end of the same year formed groups known as Working Families to control the effect of the unions from tarnishing their reputation. Over the years the employees of the company have been complaining a lot about their terms and conditions of work but not much had been changed to favor them.

This created the need for the workers to join unions, which they thought would help them to have better terms of employment, but the company was fully against the move and thus fighting the incorporation of unions into their human resource activities (Bhatnagar, 2004). The workers for Walmart used to earn an approximate of $10. 12 per hour and according to the Human Rights this was below the average earnings per hour and thus nearly this want fair. Each category of the workers had to be paid according to his or her position and Walmart managers did consider this in making their payrolls. Furthermore, it argued the closing was based, on a long-term plan and not related to matters of unionization. A case presented in 2003, through the labor relations judged that the company had to restore the business of meat cutting and work with the unions on the effects of new change (Olsson, K.

Realistically looking at the scenario which surrounds the closing of the sector of cutting is all cornered with the idea of the members voting to join the unions. The policies of the corporation not being interested to work with the unions go beyond boundaries and are even felt in other countries where it has established businesses. For example, the documentary entitled high cost of low price show unionization of the stores in Canada was successful but in few months the business was closed due to the failure of the company giving out a business plan which was relevant to the union. The United States attorney general found no evidence to what Coughlin’s claims of money having been squandered on Anti-union programs (Barstow, D.

Not in the country, but in the other places which the company had in German it collided with the trade unions. When this issues got combined with other aspects like the low performance of the stores in the country and cultural differences made the company exit from working in German full in 2006. Due to the problems it had faced of unions, in deciding to give a way out for its workers in China to become members of trade unions. This move allowed approximate of 28000 workers to join China Federation of Trade Union. The company through being sued upon sex discrimination decide to hire an Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld law to analyze the disparities in gender (Greenhouse, 2010). The findings of the company realized a lot of disparities in promotion and payment of both genders and requested the company to take relevant steps.

Some of the recommendations which were given to the company entailed all job vacancies and ensuring equal chances for all people to ensure women have the same priorities as their men counterparts. In many of the cases, it showed that women who worked for the company were paid less than the men in same positions. For instance, the salary for men was 19% more than the women salary. Analysis conducted by Akin Gump in 1993, showed that the company was undergoing expenses of $185 to $740 on sex discrimination cases heard in courts (Greenhouse, 2010). The intention of the women taking the cases to court was to be compensated based on the number of years they had worked for the company and the exact salary they deserved.

Analyzing this from an economic point of view, it was to render the business bankrupt if women were to get this right through the court. Many of the men working in the business were holding managerial contrary to women who survived in low-rank positions. In addition, the salaries per week between men and women were quite very high. The method applied to solve this problem is the wrong one and entails the company losing money not budgeted for that reason. In businesses, this will result in mismanagement of funds which could be delegated to the right purpose. This is not one point place issue and the corporation has been accused and criticized from other regions where its business is working. Similar cases on salaries had been filed 1995, by the pharmacist workers on the basis of reduced salaries and working hours being reduced due to low sales (Johnston, J.

A. Claims to have been made by the corporations’ management based on the issue looked into the safety of goods to be the reason for acting in this way and reduction of wastage of time for workers. Looking keenly, at the responses are quite meaningless and shouldn’t be followed as they result into the poor image of the corporation. Information collected by the New York Times has shown that in 2000, many of the employees had a poor record of how they were extra working. The audit revealed many of the minors were working late hours and thus its violations of the child laws. The number of breaks and meal times were quite very high in frequency and the company in response discarded the method used by the newspaper to have the data.

The customer decides not to act on the situation and the employee called upon a police to act on the situation. This is poor grounds and the management insists such matter have to be handled by the company. The arguments made by the leadership of the company is based on the idea that the customer was misused. Looking at some of the arguments which workers are losing a job from the business are not meaning and they are the need to change on how the organization handles its workers. As an employee, you have to be fired on meaning grounds and just on the favor of the customer. Males are treated fairly then females and thus raises concern on the side of women.

Males holding large positions and managerial based when compared with women has demotivated ladies in working such businesses. Not this but the low salaries of women in the same position as men is another challenge. Finally, poor working conditions and hence termination on poor grounds has raised the alarm of criticism from the public and the media at large. We can sum by saying if the company can change the on all the mentioned areas which result to poor image and being criticized, then profits, good management, and low employee turnover can be witnessed in the organization. , France, M. , Lowry, T. , Byrnes, N. & Palmer, A. T. F. Decency means more than “always low prices”: A comparison of Costco to Wal-Mart's Sam's club.