essay#1

Two years ago I came to this country. Since then I have not had any kind of problems at any place where I worked. All the employers where I had being always followed the law, and never treated unjustly to employees or abused of their authority. Contrarily, I had heard many fellows which are happy about their conditions of work that they received in this country, but from the time when I read “Up against Wal-Mart by Karen Olsson” many of my perspectives changed. Of course I do not generalize, but if there is something that I do not like at all, is that there are many people who treat unjust others just because they have more money, or in this case just because they are the employers.

Wal-mart according to the 2008 Fortune Global 500 “is the world's largest public corporation by revenue”[1] it is a company that along the years have being increasing their profits and creating more and more stores around the country, and around the world. In the article “Progressive Wal-mart. Really” by Sebastian Mallaby, he states “Wal-Mart is "a progressive success story."”(356-57). Actually yes, Wal-mart is a progressive success story. However, to come up with all the profits they have up till now and been progressive as Mallaby says in his essay; the company along the years had taken any care of their employees and done anything in their behalf. In contrast, Wal-Mart has been treating unfairly their employees. Wal-mart has being paying low wage to their workers and also has been fighting to do not allow low paid workers join an union stopping them with “union avoidance programs”.

It is unbelievable that in the twenty first century there are companies who keep taking advantage of their employees and do not respect any law as they were in the Old west. “Wal-Mart has responded to the union drive by trying to stop workers from organizing -- sometimes in violation of federal labor law. In 10 separate cases, the National Labor Relations Board has ruled that Wal-Mart repeatedly broke the law by interrogating workers, confiscating union literature, and firing union supporters”(345). Here in this piece of paragraph from Karen Olsson’s essay called “up against Wal-Mart”, we can clearly see how workers do not have any right working for the company. Wal-Mart workers are abused by their superiors which do whatever they want to prevent them to form an Union.

Furthermore, employees at Wal-mart many times are pressured to work overtime without being paid. According to Karen Olsson essay’s “Store managers are then required to schedule fewer hours than the number allotted, and their performance is monitored in daily reports back to Bentonville. To meet the goals, supervisors pressure employees to work extra hours without pay” (349). In essence, making this comment Olsson points that workers at Wal-mart do not have any choice when they work for this company. Managers and employees are supervised in reports, so in order to keep their jobs they are forced to work without paid.

Moreover, a worker in Minnesota said in Olsson’s essay "We're underpaid, and I'm worried about my retirement," says an overnight stocker in Minnesota who asked not to be identified. "I imagine I'll be working until I'm 90"(348), and with him agrees McLaughlin which said “They push you to the limit. They just want to see how much they can get away with without having to hire someone else” (342). Olsson in these two interviews is insisting that employees at Wal-mart do not receive a reasonable salary and they do not have enough money to maintain themselves. Therefore, Wal-mart should increase employees their salary because it is a company that receive billions in profits each year.

In addition, Wal-mart workers suffer of sex discrimination and are paid depending of their gender. Wal-Mart employees should be treated fair at any pace that their work at do not matter their sex distinction, racial ethnic, education or nationality etc… Human rights are for everybody, and not only for people that want to follow those. “But in 2001, a Wal-Mart executive conducted an internal study that showed the company pays female store managers less than men in the same position” (350). Such discrimination that Karen Olsson shows in this paragraph testifies the hard times that many employees pass at Wal-mart.

It is only on Wal-Mart employees to wake up and fight for their rights. If they continue doing things alone they won’t get far. Workers must unify forces and fight for their benefit. Employers at Wal-mart should wear employee’s shoes and see that the pay employees receive is not enough to survive. Even though employees have the chance to buy at the company’s stores it does not benefit workers at all; It is benefiting Wal-mart because employees are spending their money in Wal-mart stores what means that the money that Wal-mart paid is returning to Wal-mart. Just we are who decide if something is fair or not and if we want to keep doing things like that otherwise “"These are the jobs our kids are going to have,"”(354).