Employee Relations with Wal-Mart

The in-class survey that I conducted seemed to indicate two-thirds of class though that Wal-Mart regularly mistreated their workers.  In my interview, I even spoke to someone who said that their sister had trouble getting a promotion due to gender bias.  I wanted to research the specific topic of Wal-Mart employees some more.

Another reason why I found this topic interesting is because mistreatment of employees by Wal-Mart was highlighted in My Year of Meats, by Ruth L. Ozeki.  For the production of one of the episodes of "My American Wife," the director Jane visits the Bukowsky family.  Their daughter, Christina, has been paralyzed by an accident with a Wal-Mart delivery truck that ran over her as she was riding her bike and crushed her limbs. Mrs. Eleanor Bukowsky, her mother, works at Wal-Mart and asks for time off in order to help her daughter recuperate.  However, Wal-Mart denies her request because "granting her request would be admitting liability for the accident" (133).  Then, Mrs. Bukowsky asks her boss to at least fire her so that she can take care of her daughter and collect unemployment.  However, he also denies this request, stating that "it would be bad publicity for Wal-Mart to first crush the daughter, then to fire the mom" (133).  Finally, Mrs. Bukowsky decides to quit in order to take proper care of her daughter.

The events that happened in the book, although fictional, seem entirely plausible in real life situations. because we always hear news about Wal-Mart abusing its workers.  This story represents the sort of cold, profit-driven approach that one would expect from Wal-Mart.  They could have easily helped the family out, whose lives will forever be changed, but decided not to.  I want know whether Wal-Mart would allow such atrocities happen in the first place.

I searched around the web and found an independent news website called alternet.org.  The website is appropriate because their stated goal is to help people "navigate a culture of information overload and providing an alternative to the commercial media onslaught."  Their aims also include inspiring "advocacy on the environment, human rights and civil liberties, social justice, media, health care issues, and more."  On it, there was a particularly interesting article about unfair treatment of women workers.

In the recent case Dukes v. Walmart Stores, 1.5 million female Walmart employees pursued billions of dollars in damages for discriminatory management practices.  Also, in a poll conducted by Lake Research Partners, 65% of men and 75% of women reported that their income was poor or just fair.  Also, Wal-Mart's rating on topics of discipline procedures, fairness, employee insight, and healthcare benefits was "just fair" or poor.  The stores have introduced a system called Task Manager, which tracks employee efficiency when it comes to amount of freight they can process.  People report losing "respect for the individual to just only caring about the amount of freight we can handle."

Of course, when workers try to unite and make a change, Wal-Mart responds with retaliation.  According to an article written by Charlie Cray on the Center for the Advanced Studies of American Institutions and Social Movements website, Wal-Mart chose to start using "case-ready meat" and cut its meat packaging business at 180 stores after a group of ten butchers in a Wal-Mart store in Jacksonville voted to unionize their department.  The company stated that their actions were not a form of retaliation, but rather "part of a long-term plan to sell prepackaged beef cuts instead of preparing on-site."  However, this response is faulty because the Jacksonville butchers argue that the company had just spent $40,000 on a new meat wrapping machine for their store.

Now, the stories in My Year of Meats don't seem fictional at all.  They are just retellings of a story of corporate greed that has been purely profit-driven.  Wal-Mart's goal is not to improve the quality of life for their workers.  Not only that, but after reading My Year of Meats, the switch to case-ready meats worries me.  The book explained the usage of growth hormones such as DES to hasten the growth of cattle for slaughter in unsanitary conditions.  When Wal-Mart got rid of its butchers, people were no longer exactly where there beef was coming from and how it was being processed.  Now, when we buy meat in prepackaged foam containers with saran wrap covering, we are left to wonder just how it got there in the first place.  

Sources:

-Bernd, Candice. "Wal-Mart's Women Workers Still Face Unfair Treatment, Low Wages, Struggle For Better Conditions." AlterNet.org. N.p., 15 July 2011. Web. 13 June 2012. <http://www.alternet.org/story/151622/wal-mart's_women_workers_still_face_unfair_treatment,_low_wages,_struggle_for_better_conditions/?page=1>.

Cray, Charlie. "Atelier 8, Article 1." Center for the Advanced Studies of American Institutions and Social Movements, Apr. 2000. Web. 14 June 2012. <http://dimension.ucsd.edu/CEIMSA-IN-EXILE/ateliers2/a8/art8-1.html>

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