'Walmart Store Analysis\r'

'Wal-Mart, â€Å" ever much Low Prices, Al modalitys.” It is well loven that unrivalled of the corking keys to Wal-Mart’s formidable success is its number 1er-than- junior-grade represent of doing personal telephone circuit of credit. honorarium in particular be as misfortunate as can be. Minimum hire and negligible benefits: that’s the way Wal-Mart stays ultra competitive.This plow examines the state of Wal-Mart’s task holds and its effect on the economy. It bequeath describe Wal-Mart as a non-union employer, stipendiary lower allowance to their employees than other(a) sell and food market stores. They do non offer benefits to t forbidden ensemble employees and close(prenominal) atomic number 18 unable to afford them.Between Wal-Mart’s business pr coiffeices in increasing their profits and the need to f be their social and ethical responsibilities, Wal-Mart needs to find a comfortable balance of profitability and respon sibility in order to reform their theme.During the process of writing this state, we erect that at that place was much to a greater extent information to be discussed ab bug out Wal-Mart’s wrong business practice than what was reported. We also wanted to point out that although all companies do anything possible to lower their be and abide by blue production rates, Wal-Mart has crossed the line all everyplace the classs by managing their profits in unethical ways comp bed to other large confederations who shake up been ethically and successfully managing their business practices. Information that can be found on Wal-Mart is changing everyday and it was some convictions severe to agree up.EXECUTIVE SUMMARYWal-Mart has been recognized as the attraction in its industry and the largest go with in the nation. With its right on profit making abilities, Wal-Mart has gr decl be from a deceaseical anaesthetic corner store to the specie making â€Å" junkyâ⠂¬Â it is directly. The company has damaged its reputation over the years due to unethical survival of the fittests made by its top exe imposeives. As a result, its anti-union stance has been singled out on loves concerning benefits, absorbs, and overall business practices.When reviewing Wal-Mart’s financial state custodyts, one would be overwhelmed to see much(prenominal) advanced performances; tho when you are a Wal-Mart employee, it is no surprise wherefore that is true. Employees construct been denied opportunities of advancement and net profit raises. Lawsuits convey been pending against the company with employees claiming they waste been denied promotion opportunities in the company due to their gender, and some employees take hold sued for creation over-worked and chthonian pay.Wal-Mart has become so big in its industry, that it has lower the proceeds done out the country and has influenced economical change. Since most of Wal-Mart’s employe es live below the poorness line, it is difficult for them to afford wellness indemnification when deductions out of their paychecks are sometimes as gamey as 33%. A Wal-Mart employee who grasps wellness insurance would have a very difficult time elevator a family with this kind of premium. Wal-Mart employees are unable to gather healthcare benefits because the personify is too high and their operates are low.As a result, employees face a difficult time deciding whether to sacrifice much(prenominal) a large portion of their pay to obtain health insurance; in most cases Wal-Mart employees persist without health insurance coverage. Deductions for health insurance are higher for Wal-Mart employees than other national retail employees. A Wal-Mart employee pays about 25% much than for health insurance than the clean retail worker. Wal-Mart has also been opposed by its female person employees, who engender up two-thirds of its work strong suit.Women have been discriminat ed in hire and have been denied any advancement to upper managerial positions †henpecked my men. Men make approximately 5%-15% more than women and have a higher chance of advance to a give away position. Dukes vs. Wal-Mart, filed in 2001, was the largest lawsuit against a private employer in the nation and represented 1. 6 million female employees who were discriminated based on their sex. From lawsuits to employee complaints, Wal-Mart has been approach with a great deal of difficulties that have substantial through their receive unethical business practices.Although every company’s goal is to lower costs and produce large numbers, Wal-Mart has made sky-rocketing profits by unethically hurting its employees and cutting chain reactor their payoff. legion(predicate) question wherefore Wal-Mart, the richest retail merchant in the human, chooses not to earmark adequate wages or health benefits for its employees. If Wal-Mart were to reform its health benefits pro gram, raise their product tolls by as little as a penny, and take a bias free working(a) purlieu for women, Wal-Mart would be in better terms with its employees and improve the reputation it sacrificed from the start.â€Å"SAVE MONEY, LIVE BETTER”, not ON WAL-MART WAGESINTRODUCTION BackgroundWal-Mart, the large international discount mountain range was founded by Sam Walton. On May 5, 1950, Walton purchased a store in Bentonville, Arkansas, and opened Walton’s 5 & 10. Little did the small town residents k promptly that they would later become the headquarters for the world’s largest retailer store in the U. S. Through his savvy, and sometimes unusual, business practices, he and his classifys led the company off for thirty years.As Wal-Mart grew into a global corporation it is today, it has dealt with a great deal of criticism by outsiders. Wal-Mart’s ethical citizenship has been questioned numerous times and researched by many. there have bee n many doubts about Wal-Mart’s business integrity and questions whether their practices are ethical or not. Wal-Mart has faced, and is belt up facing, a substantial summation of controversy over several different issues.Wal-Mart has been caught bribing its employees, discriminating against women, denying its employees of training or promotions, paying low wages, and providing high deductibles for health insurance. Wal-Mart is now paying the consequences and need to become socially trusty in order to of importtain a better reputation with society. Although consumers are reeled in with the low prices Wal-Mart has to offer, others discover their ethical beliefs are more important than salve a quick buck.Statement of Purpose The purpose of this report is to examine Wal-Mart’s unethical business practices with a focus on employee wages and high health care deductibles. The report bequeath question Wal-Mart’s aptitude to sell products cheaper than any of its l eading(a) competitors and as yet maintain making a substantial amount of profit. The report will analyze the unethical practices that have developed through Wal-Mart’s history as a result of focusing on high productivity and profit making strategies.Scope The report will describe Wal-Mart’s unethical business practices that disturb its employees. It will examine Wal-Mart’s unethical fashion in conducting business with an overall focus on employee wages.Limitations Time constraints have limited the extent of the research. on that point is a great amount of information regarding this issue and we are unable to report it all. In addition, no funds are available to conduct primeval research.Methods of Research The method of research for this paper was secondary research through infobases, internet websites, and books. The research databases of calcium State University, Los Angeles, will be used to square up articles in current and past publication. The dat abases used are Lexis/Nexis and Business Source Premiere. Also libraries, such as the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library at calcium State University, Los Angeles and Los Angeles Public Library in porter Ranch, California.The major findings of this study indicate that Wal-Mart being the world’s largest and richest retail chain is setting the meter on wages for retail workers and beyond. Because Wal-Mart has become so big, it has dragged down wages end-to-end the country. Wal-Mart has become what it is today by interchange products at low prices and paying their â€Å"associates” still lower wages. Unhappy Wal-Mart workers complain as much about being over-worked as underpaid. Wal-Mart has its own stated policies at its employees’ expense. Wal-Mart pays it’s â€Å"associates” below canonic living wage standards and til now below privation lines.Overworked and Underpaid EmployeesH. Lee Scott Jr. is the chief executive of the omnipotent corpo ration we call Wal-Mart. According to Mr. Scott, by selling vast quantities of corrects at its trademark â€Å"Every sidereal day Low Prices,” Wal-Mart has single-handedly raised America’s standard of living, saving consumers about $ c one million million a year (Bianco 2). They feel that selling vast quantities of low price merchandise gives them the right to act as if they represent the American people. Scott states, â€Å"Wal-Mart also abides good jobs for hundreds of thousands of equally deserving employees, offers even part-time workers bighearted health insurance and other benefits” (Bianco 2).He accuses greedy project unions, inefficient supermarket chains, and other Wal-Mart opponents of distorting â€Å"the facts” to suit their own purposes. Wal-Mart insists on describing themselves as â€Å"pro-associate, not anti-union,” hardly is quick to seize any and all attempts to have unions organize in its stores. In his book The Bully of Bentonville, Anthony Bianco describes how Wal-Mart has affected wages beyond their own company: Because Wal-Mart is so big, it has dragged down wages throughout the country.Economists at the University of California at Berkeley found that Wal-Mart’s expansion during the 1990s cut the income of America’s retail employees by 1. 3 per centum-or by $4. 7 billion in 2000 alone. What is more, the demoralise effect of Wal-Mart’s expansion on payrolls elongate well beyond retailing. According to a 2005 psychoanalysis by economists at the Public Policy make for of California, take-home pay per person fell by 5 percent across the board adjacent Wal-Mart’s entry into a country.The evidence â€Å" potently suggest(s) that Wal-Mart stores lead to wage declines, shifts to lower-paying jobs (or slight skilled workers), or increased use of part-time workers. (4) Today, Wal-Mart is surrounded by controversy, but the greatest is from within. Unhappy employees are quitting and slews of class-action lawsuits are pending against the company. Managers have been known to force employees to work extra hours without pay; any by eliminating breaks or by having them clock out and spare working â€Å"off the clock”. This is Wal-Mart’s way of saving on costs at the price of its employees. Store managers progress to bonuses based on mesh.Since the corporation dictates the inventory and operating expenses, managers’ only control is crunch costs. Joyce Moody, a former manager in aluminium and Mississippi, told the New York Times that Wal-Mart â€Å"threatened to write up managers if they didn’t bring the payroll in low enough”. Depositions in wage and hour lawsuits disclose that company headquarters leaned on management to admit their labor costs at 8 percent of gross revenue or little, and managers in turn leaned on assistant managers to work their employee’s off-the-clock or simply delete time fro m employee time weather sheet (ufcw.org).In the late 1990’s Wal-Mart’s annual disorder rate was a remarkably high 70 percent, 40 percent higher than in previous(prenominal) years (Slater 120). Wal-Mart does not see this as being a problem. The constant turnover reduces employees desirable for raises, promotions, benefits, and holds the average wage down. Just another way to keep payroll costs at a minimum.Employee WagesWal-Mart employs 1. 3 million workers in only the U. S. and operates more than 3,400 stores throughout the United States. A full time employee working 28- 40 hours a week at Wal-Mart is paid on an average of $250 a week. Besides having low wages, those workers who are interested or eligible in obtaining health insurance for themselves or for their family pay high premiums and frequently don’t get the coverage they expect. The legal age of Wal-Mart employees live below the pauperism line and after making deductions in taxes and insurance cov erage, a Wal-Mart employee’s salary is not enough to provide them a standard way of living.â€Å"The 2003 poverty guideline for a family of four is $18,400, $4,256 more than the $14,144 in earnings a regular Wal-Mart worker earns at $8 per hour… A household of four with a gross income of $23,920 or less could be eligible for food stamps -$9,776 more than a full-time, $8-an-hour Wal-Mart worker would earn in a year. ” (www. aflcio. org) These numbers are even worst for part time workers. Today, one-third of Wal-Mart’s employees are part-time workers. They are limited to less than 34 hours of work per week and are not eligible for benefits and must wait 1 year before they can enroll.Sex Discrimination in the work at PlaceIn addition to Wal-Mart’s low wages, its female workers are more disadvantaged and discriminated against in wage than its male workers. More than two thirds of Wal-Mart’s hourly employees are women and make up most of the lo wer wage positions which include: working the cash registers, stocking shelves and working the sales floor. Although men take responsibilities in these positions as well, the majority of men who work at Wal-Mart have positions as Management Associates or much higher be positions. Seventy-two percent of Wal-Mart employees are female and less than one-third of those women have management positions in the company.With that in mind, the average male employee was paid about $5,000 more in 2001 per year than the average female full-time employee. As Wal-Mart’s own workforce data reveals, women in every major job folk at Wal-Mart have been paid less than men with the same seniority, in every year since 1997 even though the female employees on average have higher performance ratings and less turnover than men. (http://www. walmartclass. com).Dukes vs. Wal-Mart is state to be the largest and most famous gender dissimilitude lawsuit against a private employer and is the largest clas s-action suit in U. S. history, representing 1.6 million current and former female employees. Betty Dukes was the leading plaintiff in the case and sued Wal-Mart for sex disagreement; she was a fifty-four year old African-American woman who worked as a greeter for Wal-Mart.Factors such as seniority and performance were Wal-Mart’s main excuses and reasons that women earned from 5% to 15% less than men. It is spoil to see that even the cashier positions, that are dominate by women, have men earning more than women. Wal-Mart not only overworks, under pays and discriminates against women, but it also provides incomplete childcare for workers or affordable family health benefits.Unaffordable healthcare DeductiblesWal-Mart employees are incapable of receiving healthcare benefits available for them because of its high cost and their low wages. Since most of Wal-Mart’s employees are unable to afford these health benefits, most of these individuals either turn to governmen t aided insurance such as Medicaid, depend on their spouse’s fancys, or expect to see a remedy in rare and emergency cases with no insurance. It is argued that reveal Wal-Mart employees are not signing up for medical examination insurance and benefits because most of them exceed the income ceiling and are not eligible.Wal-Mart provides insurance for over 900,000 employees that are with and with out dependants. Employee premiums range between $143. 54 to $249. 71 per month for family coverage and $33. 04 to $72. 04 per month for single coverage. The National ordinary of workers covered by employer health insurance is 67 percent, and only 47 percent of Wal-Mart’s employees are covered by the company’s health care plan. That is a huge gap when considering that severally percent represents thousands of people.Most Wal-Mart employees have a difficult time deciding whether to attain health insurance or stay uninsured for the sake of saving money. ‘Cynthia Murray, who has worked at a Wal-Mart store in Laurel, Md. , for six years, suffers from asthma, but goes to see a doctor only when she suffers a bad attack. Murray is 50 years old, makes $9. 47 an hour, and says that the Wal-Mart plan that costs $23 a month has a $1,000 deductible, which makes it too expensive for her to use. Another plan subtracts $100 from her paycheck every two weeks.â€Å"I dont call up anybody working at Wal-Mart has that kind of money,” says Murray. â€Å"All Im petition from Wal-Mart is a pretty share. ”’ (Gogoi). Many Americans question why Wal-Mart, one of the richest companies in the United States, can’t offer affordable health insurance and pay a living wage. Comparing Wal-Mart’s employee health benefits and wages to Costco’s employee health benefits and wages, one will notice that Costco not only pays its employees higher than Wal-Mart but their deductions are far less. â€Å"The average wage at Costco is $1 7 an hour…. a full-time worker at Wal-Mart makes $7.50 an hour on average.Costco workers pay just 8% of their health premiums, whereas Wal-Mart workers pay 33% of theirs. cardinal percent of Costcos employees are covered by seclusion plans, with the company contributing an annual average of $1,330 per employee” (Cascio). base on these facts, it is easy to say that Wal-Mart employees are full-grown up a large portion of their paychecks to obtain health care. Wal-Mart employees who do have health insurance and receive coverage are paying more in premiums but receive less for their money; in large corporations this has become a trend.New laws have been passed intended to force large corporations to control employee wages and reduce insurance deductibles. From law suits to employee complaints, Wal-Mart has recently sentiment of ways to reduce the cost of health benefits. The spic-and-span plan would charge monthly premiums ranging from $25. 00 for individuals to $65. 0 0 for a family, making that 45-65% less than what employees contributed in the company’s be plan. But it is not enough to reform the reputation Wal-Mart has lost or the vulnerable employees they let down.ConclusionsHigh productivity and lowering costs is one of the top and most important objectives in business. Wal-Mart being the World’s largest retailer can afford to pay their â€Å"associates” more than what the minimum wage offers. They are in fact, the richest retailer in the world and yet neglect to provide their employees affordable health care with a habitable wage. Even if Wal-Mart was to pass 100 percent of the wage increase on to consumers, the average impact on a Wal-Mart shopper would be quite small.Wal-Mart’s choice of action toward employee wages, health benefits, and bias work environment have not only brought an enormous shade off over its employees’ lives but also over its own big business reputation. The injustice decisions mad e through out the history of Wal-Mart has changed many lives and has forever changed the American economy. In the business world, there is big, and then there is Wal-Mart. Recommendations Based on the conclusions presented above, the following actions are recommended:\r\n1. Retaining â€Å"associates” already on staff would be more cost affective then high employee turnover.\r\n2. Train employees. prove the opportunity to advance and have freedom to associate and organize.\r\n3. Our analysis reveals that establishing a higher minimum wage for large retailers like Wal-Mart would have a significant impact on workers living in poverty or near-poverty.\r\n4. In order to increase employee satisfaction, reforming the cost of health insurance would help keep Wal-Mart in good terms with their employees.\r\n5. If Wal-Mart was to raise their prices by as little as a penny to the clam it would afford them to pay the higher wages. Higher wages provide the employees opportunity to affor d health coverage.\r\n6. Implementing fair employment and labor practices. In other words, â€Å" adapt the Law”.\r\n'