Wal-Mart was established back in 1962 and has grown and developed tremendously to become the leading retail store not only in America but also in the global business environment. The company has been at the top of the Fortune 500 list of corporations by rankings of revenues for a good number of years. In the private sector of the United States, Wal-Mart remains to be the largest employer, yet the stingiest to its employees regarding pay and health cover. For the many years that Wal-Mart has enjoyed the success of growth and development in the market, it has developed a public image that is characterized by the mistreatment of workers based on matters of low wages. Seemingly, the management of the company has exhibited unyielding drive and commitment of cutting down costs for profitability to extents of it being at the expense of the employees. For the close to sixty years that the company has been in operation, the workers have been on the receiving end of discounting rights; with sheer hard work but unable to form unions to fight for them and make their voices heard. An analysis of the situation shows that the company has engaged in acts that imply the violation of the rights of the workers to engage in freedom of association. Further analysis shows that over time, there have been some significant challenges that the workers faced, which made them unable to form unions.
For some years now, the shareholders’ meetings of Wal-Mart have been characterized by serious protests against the way the company treats its employees. The workers, whose numbers are in the millions, have also been seen engaging in strikes and protests in many occasions. Further analysis of the history of Wal-Mart shows that the company’s efforts of preventing its workers from forming unions started soon after it was formed. It appears to be a form of the strategy of the firm from its early days soon after its conception. Wal-Mart opened a store in Mexico, Missouri, in 1970 and the workers began discussions of formation of a union soon after that. The response of the company was the firing of the worker that was responsible for the initiation of the processes of discussion (Copeland, & Labuski, 2013) . It is very interesting to note that the worker that was hired to replace the fired one was one that was described as a professional union-buster in his professional circles. The situation formed a first challenge that the workers of the company faced in attempting to unionize- loss of jobs.
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A keen look at the situation also shows that the workers face the challenge of having not only weak labor laws but also poor enforcement of the labor laws by the government and its agencies. A review of the laws of the country shows that the labor laws of the United States are below the international standards (Wong, 2015). The challenge also implies that Wal-Mart is at a relatively strong position of engaging in sophisticated tactics of making its employees shun from the action of forming unions. In actuality, the company’s stores have been reported severally in the media for showing graphic images to employees in an effort of discouraging them from forming unions. It is important to remember that such action by the company implies a violation of the internationally protected rights of the employees of freedom of association. The company’s actions of exploiting the weak labor laws of the United States have brought about a significant and drastic decline in the attempts of its employees to employ unionization, which is a sanctioned process of The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). The resultant effect is that union election petitions for union representation are not being made, as it is desired in consideration of the working conditions of the workers. Additionally, according to the law of the United States, the employers can legally oppose campaigns of union organizing by employees.
The law also allows the employers to replace employees that may strike because of economic reasons (Sethi, 2014). Over the years, Wal-Mart has heavily relied on the threat of replacement to scare its workers from organizing unions during processes of training new recruits. Clearly, the company demonstrates a sense of a proactive approach towards prevention of formation of unions. Again, it is clear that employers that violate labor laws in the country receive penalties that are exceptionally weak compared to other regions of the world like the European Union (Massengill, 2013). This factor poses as a very powerful tool for the company for purposes of threatening its workers not to form unions. It is important to remember that the company is a leading one in the global market in terms of revenue. As such, the management of Wal-Mart seems not to be alarmed by measures of litigation by its employees regarding the subject matter.
The other challenge that the workers have is that the observing regulatory and other stakeholder bodies or agencies continue to witness the firm’s chronic labor strife and respond with disregard. Such even more makes the efforts of the organization of unionization of the workers to be more difficult (Copeland, & Labuski, 2013). What is appalling about the matter is that the situation has been going on for over a half a century now. An analysis of the situation shows that it promotes the actions of the company of keeping its workforce in America nonunion.
The company tends to prevail even in rare occasions wherein the efforts to unionize have exhibited capacity of overcoming the challenges described above. Such is attributed to the weighty economic power and abundances of resources for investments. In actuality, the company has a strong financial position that allows it to open hundreds of stores around the world on an annual basis. To explain the scenario is the example of butchers at a Wal-Mart store in Texas in the year 2000 that organized to join the United Food and Commercial Workers Union. The company responded by closing all of its 180 meat counters at the store. In 2004, when the workers of another store voted to unionize, Wal-Mart’s management responded by closing the entire store (Copeland, & Labuski, 2013).
References
Copeland, N., & Labuski, C. (2013). The world of Wal-Mart: Discounting the American Dream . Routledge.
Massengill, R. P. (2013). Wal-Mart Wars: Moral Populism in the Twenty-first Century . NYU Press.
Reich, A., & Bearman, P. (2018). Working for Respect: Community and Conflict at Wal-Mart . Columbia University Press.
Sethi, P. (2014). The Wal-Mart affair–Where Implausible Deniability Is The Coin Of The Realm. Corporate Governance , 14 (3), 424-451.
Wong, N. C. W. (2015). Wal ‐ Mart. The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Consumption and Consumer Studies , 1-3.
