Wal-Mart and Workers' Rights

Paper Summary:

This paper refers to the film "Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost" that paints a picture of atrocious human resources practices at Wal-Mart. The paper describes how Wal-Mart pays poverty-level wages, withholds benefits from most of their employees and practices all kinds of systemic discrimination. The paper explains that this results from the power they have as well as their primary goal of making money for shareholders, regardless of humanitarian or ethical considerations. The paper asserts that the implications of this are enormously frightening for workers all over the world.

From the Paper:

"The film Wal-Mart: The High Price of Low Cost (Greenwald, 2005) gives an overview of what the director sees as the damage done by Wal-Mart. It argues that despite the Wal-Mart commercials that portray Wal-Mart a great place to work, Wal-Mart is in fact a terrible place to work. Essentially, what emerges is a picture of an employer-employee relationship in which the employer uses its power to bully workers, resulting in extremely unfair treatment. The opening scenes of the film show Wal-Mart's CEO, Lee Scott, being treated as if he is a god, with thousands of workers cheering him. This creates an initial impression that this must be a wonderful company. However, this impression is quickly dispelled."

Sample of Sources Used:

• lAchbar, Mark and Jennifer Abbott. (Directors). (2003). The corporation. Big Picture Media Corporation.
• Dessler, Gary, Nina D. Cole, Patricia M. Goodman and Virginia L. Sutherland. (2007). Management of human resources. 2nd Canadian Ed. Toronto: Pearson Prentice Hall.
• Featherstone, Liza. (2004). Selling women short: The landmark fight for workers' rights at Wal-Mart. New York: Basic Books.
• Greenwald, Robert. (Director). (2005). Wal-Mart: The high price of low cost. Brave New Films.
• Quinn, Bill. (2005). How Wal-Mart is destroying America (and the world) and what you can do about it. (3rd ed.) Toronto: Ten Speed Press.

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