BP Editors
WalMart is another behemoth company accused time and time again of being downright evil. Labor unions, community groups, religious organizations, environmental groups and WalMart customers all have one thing in common: they hate the way WalMart does business.
First there is the issue of predatory store placement. When WalMart enters a new town, it’s almost guaranteed to eradicate all of the small businesses in the surrounding areas. How are mom and pop shops supposed to compete against WalMart’s absurdly wide selection and ridiculously low prices? Besides destroying local businesses, WalMart insisted on opening a superstore only two miles down the road from a historical site in Mexico, and the construction of the WalMart parking lot revealed small artifacts beneath the surface during digging. Who cares? Not WalMart.
Then there’s the whole “trying to drive competitors out of the market with unfairly low prices” thing. WalMart has actually been sued for what’s called predatory pricing, or intentionally selling a product at an unreasonably low cost to drive out the competition. Walmart won one of these three cases but settled out of court for the other two.
And let’s not forget the public outcry and outrage surrounding the poor treatment of WalMart’s employees. They’ve been notorious for providing wages so poor that full timers still have to reply on food stamps and welfare just to get by. And working conditions, as described by many of these harrowing first-hand accounts here, paint a grisly image of non-investigated sexual harassment in the work place, denied sick leave, reduced working hours and a vehement opposition toward anyone who wanted to work in a union.
In response to the outcries of employee horror stories, megalomaniac WalMart simply requested that employees send in happier stories instead. A pretty creepy and cold response from a company responsible for the well-being of thousands of employees.
WalMart is vehemently anti-union, in favor of higher profits and lower wages.
Other WalMart horror stories can be found here.
