Wal-Mart, why it isn’t a gift
Synthesis Essay on Wal-Mart
Submitted to: Mr. Garrioch
By: HaeUk Ko
Student ID: 111009
For: English Composition
Should have been On: Wednesday, March 7th, 2012
Actually submitted on: Friday, March, 9th, 2012
The relationship between customers and producers is an intimate relationship that is central to the modern citizen who is not capable of producing all the things one needs. This has grown even more important as nowadays, world-wide enterprises take a big role and the average citizen is belittled by his/her counterpart in the relationship. Because one side of the deal is too powerful compared to the other, certain cases arise where citizens believe themselves to be cheated by their counterparts. One such case is the Wal-Mart crisis. Wal-Mart should be blamed for harming the economic base of the local society, forcing unjust relationship regarding the producers of the product Wal-Mart sell, and maltreating the employees of Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart becomes the dominant workplace around the local are as soon as it is built. This means that a substantial part of the local workforce is drafted by Wal-Mart as its ‘associates’. A society where the majority of the job offered is Wal-Mart ‘associate’ is neither attractive nor healthy. It is widely known that Wal-Mart associates are part-time workers. The associates do not receive a monthly salary they would have gotten if employed at the local herb-store but rather get hourly fees. A monthly salary is beneficial in the sense that the worker earns a stable income and that workers are free to leave work at any time after the pre-assigned time without having to worry about the hours their manager count. On the other hand, part-time workers earn hourly fees counted by the hours they put into work. This means that if a worker is sick or otherwise occupied due to unpreventable reasons, the worker’s income becomes drastically different based on whether he/she is a full-time employee or a part-time worker. Hence, a significant portion of the local area’s workforce becomes dependent on Wal-Mart and loses the power to pursue their economic rights if Wal-Mart violates it.
Furthermore, Wal-Mart doesn’t only affect people who work at companies but also people who own a company in the area. The documentary, “Wal-Mart: The high cost of low price”, does a splendid job of illustrating how local-owned mom&pop shops are negatively affected by the establishment of a Wal-Mart. From the documentary, a case can be seen where a shop dealing with hardware such as bolts and nuts was forced to close because Wal-Mart moved into the community. H&H hardware, located at Middlefield, Ohio, was affected in such a way because Wal-Mart’s field of sale overlapped with H&H hardware. The short clip, “When Wal-Mart comes to town: a success story”, John O’Leary, owner of a contractor equipment shop emphasizes how Wal-Mart helped his store by making more traffic and consequently, more customers. However, this situation can be seen as a result of the comparative freshness of the Wal-Mart in his area. Wal-Mart does not usually touch all fields of sale when they first move into town. Rather, they wait until they get settled and stable in the area before expanding. If the local Wal-Mart decided to include contractor equipment as a part of its sales, Mr. O’Leary would have stood no chance.
Retail stores do not produce the products they sell, but rather buy them from the producers and then make profit by selling the products at a higher price. This indicates that the original price of the product determines to a certain extent, the market price. However, this becomes different when the market is dominated by a large enterprise. In this case, Wal-Mart, who should be determining their price based on the original price they purchase, rather indirectly lowers the original price by setting the market price at a low price. Because Wal-Mart has grown so big and so many producers are dependent on Wal-Mart for their products to reach the market, Wal-Mart wields the power to set the price. Consequently, producers are forced to sell their products at a very low price in order to meet the Wal-Mart standards. This harms the producers in that they cannot sell their products at an adequate price and it also harms the customers because producers try to use cheaper, less-secure methods of producing. Despite Wal-Mart’s slogan that it saves the producers by granting access to the market, Wal-Mart threatens the producers by granting access that is controlled by Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart mal-treats its employee regarding health issues, racial issues and job-contract issues. Because most Wal-Mart employee are part-time workers, they are vulnerable to unfair contracts or change in their contract concerning their health-insurance and job-contracts. In most countries, part-time workers are guaranteed less legal security when it comes to health insurance. This makes health-insurance contracts prone to unjust adjustments by the company, such as Wal-Mart, which is one of the biggest promoters of part-time jobs in the world. Wal-Mart employees have been reported to be exposed to on-the-spot firing. According to “The High cost of low prices”, Wal-Mart has repeatedly used on-the-spot firing to firing workers who were too loud in voicing complaints. This also worked against union forming process among Wal-Mart employees.
To conclude, Wal-Mart does not benefit the people in the sense that it harms the local economic base on both the work-force level and the enterprise-level. The local work-force are presented with only a limited number of choices which are oftentimes part-time jobs. Local shop-owners quit their business because Wal-Mart does not leave room for competition. Producers suffer from not getting enough out of their produce due to Wal-Mart’s tyrannical price policies. The “Associates” working at Wal-Mart are not treated as any proper associate should be, but are rather deprived of their rights. If the governments will not act for the people, then at least, may some divine being strike this monster down.
Works cited:
The High cost of low prices
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hftb_DVuelo&feature=player_embedded#!
When Wal-Mart comes to town: a success story
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdtcBiaflUQ&feature=player_embedded
Chicago approves its first Wal-Mart
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5069992/ns/business-us_business/t/chicago-approves-its-first-wal-mart/
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