“Hey, son, I think we need some peanut butter and strawberry jam soon.” Dad says, on one Sunday morning. Sooner or later, I’m walking along the high stands full of jams and butter in Wal-Mart, with just a five-dollar bill in my pocket. Just like that, Wal-Mart allures us with is such low prices of products we need. According to the article “Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities”, Wal-Mart provides us, the consumers, with a choice that would have not been available before. This “choice”, adds up to the higher quality of life, allowing its consumers to save up more budgets to spend somewhere else. However, it is an unfortunate truth that Wal-Mart is blindfolding its consumers with the “choice” they provided from all the harms and damages they presented to all the people and society around it. The primary victims of Wal-Mart’s hidden truth mostly concern its employees and local communities. Specifically, the wages and working conditions of employees along with closings of local shops and businesses are Wal-Mart’s primary source of assault. There is no doubt that Wal-Mart benefited its consumers by its never-ending desire to wring out the costs. Still, on the other side of such benefits, there exists a much darker side from workers and local merchants. There is more harm than gain from Wal-Mart’s deeds, and the first darkness that Wal-Mart tried to hide is impacts of it on the employees.
One of the most concerning issues about employees are about wages and working conditions. As mentioned in the article “The Price of Pickles”, most of the full-time workers at Wal-Mart work 40 hours at the most getting paid around 7~9 dollars an hour. Some defenders of all-mighty Wal-Mart claim that 7~9 dollars is more than twice the minimum wage. Nevertheless, that is just another excuse and a blindfold to fool the world outside Wal-Mart. Unfortunately many employees in Wal-Mart receive free medical aid or equivalent relief programs from in numerous states. Now, this is a sufficient piece of information that no matter how hard you work in Wal-Mart, you still won’t be able to escape from the swamp of poverty. According to the article “Always Low Wages”, Wal-Mart provides nearly 1.3 million jobs. Although Wal-Mart might be able to squeeze through the chain of laws, we can say that Wal-Mart is responsible of at least 1.3 million poverties or near-poverties. Opinions may vary about whether 1.3 million near-poverties is more harm than supplying cheap products national-wide. Sadly, there is more (POP). There are various reported cases of Wal-Mart forcing the employees to work overtime without proper pay or locking them in the shop to “prevent stealing”. In addition, Wal-Mart blocks or steers its employees away from the union. One union organizer says in the article, ‘Wal-Mart is one of the most anti, if not the most aggressively anti-union company in the entire history of the United States’. One incident where Wal-Mart closed all of its fresh-meat departments when meat workers of Wal-Mart constructed labor union clearly supports such statement. Now it might be easier to decide between benefits from Wal-Mart’s low prices and harms done to its employees. If it is still not easy, another story about Wal-Mart’s international/foreign employees will make the decision easier.
Put in a nutshell, the most serious damage done by Wal-Mart is in the developing countries, as strongly mentioned in “The Price of Pickles”. Wal-Mart employs labor from such countries at a ridiculously cheap price. For example, in Bangladesh, Wal-Mart hired about 189,000 seamstresses, paying only around 13 and 17 cents per hour. Not only that, those seamstresses work 14 hours a day, having 10 days off at most a year. This ruthless employment in developing countries like China or Bangladesh is harming hundreds and thousands of people worldwide. In other words, Wal-Mart is assisting developing countries to maintain poverty. Thus, Wal-Mart is dealing harm not only is the United States, but also internationally.
Another most concerning issues about harm done by Wal-Mart concerns the local communities around it. Most visible harm is destroying of local shops and businesses. For one, 43 per cent of men’s and boys’ clothing shops went out of business. Businesses in small town had an especially hard impact due to Wal-Mart, unable to compete against a gigantic cooperation that’s alluring the local customers with a cheap price. As mentioned in “Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities?” some people argue that everyone except the owners of small stores gained from the cheap price and Wal-Mart’s just providing them with another free choice. However according to research mentioned in “The Price of Pickles”, concluded that ‘the presence of Wal-Mart unequivocally raised family poverty rates in US countries during the 1990s.’ Research stated that while the poverty rates in countries without Wal-Mart decreased from 13.1 per cent to 10.7 per cent, the value in countries with Wal-Mart only fell to 11 per cent. This is not a mere coincidence. It shows the long-term outcome of net harmful effect on communities, cheap prices not able to offset Wal-Mart’s harms. Furthermore, Wal-Mart’s never-ending expansion is slowly but steadily killing the local merchants and businesses all over the United States. Thus, in addition to harm done to its employees all over the world, Wal-Mart results harm to local communities, destroying the local businesses and in long-term, hindering poverty rates from going down which is due to Wal-Mart’s cheap prices that pro-Wal-Mart supporters insist on so much.
With these in mind, let’s go back to the original question: Does Wal-Mart gives out more benefits from its cheap prices than harm? The answer is clear now. There is no doubt that Wal-Mart does more harm than benefits to all the people and society around it. Worldwide, Wal-Mart is extorting labor from its employees with a very low wage, keeping them in the cycle of poverty even though they work 14 hours a day. Locally, Wal-Mart is ruining small shops and businesses. The cheap price that Wal-Mart boasts about proved to be hindering poverty rates from decreasing in long-term. People will still shop at Wal-Mart allured by money saved when they shop there. However, it cannot be denied that Wal-Mart is harmful indeed – a fact that shouldn’t be forgotten.
Works Cited
- Fishman, Charles. “The Wal-Mart You Don’t Know.” Fast Company 19 Dec. 2007: 7 – 10. Print.
- L. Anderson, William. “Does Wal-Mart Destroy Communities?” Mises Daily 1 May. 2004: 21-23. Print.
- Bolton, Brian. “Always Low Wages.” Sojourners Feb. 2004: 17. Print.
- Lanchester, John. “The Price of Pickles.” London Review of Books 28.12 (2006): 3 – 6. Print.
I assume this is not the updated version with revisions made etc. When you have time upload a new post with the changes suggested in red ink I gave back to you.
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