Media and congressional reports have pointed to how the retail chain has mistreated employees, hurt industry wage standards and put major strains on public health-care programs.
I'll admit that I never liked Wal-Mart stores in the first place, and I certainly don't shop there. However, I can see why some people would because of its low prices and convenience. What some people may not know, however, is that Wal-Mart has developed a notorious reputation for how it has treated employees, having been the target on several occasions of lawsuits.
In 2001, current and former female Wal-Mart employees filed a massive nationwide sex discrimination class action lawsuit in U. S. District Court against Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. The suit is seeking class action status that will make it the largest class action lawsuit ever with more than 1 million participants. Also in 2005 a class- action suit was filed in Los Angeles on behalf of 15 workers in Bangladesh, Swaziland, Indonesia, China and Nicaragua claiming that Wal-Mart ignored inhumane working conditions at many of its suppliers' factories around the world. Each of these incidents is reported on the BBC news Web site.
On another occasion, according to an article in the Wall Street Journal, Wal-Mart agreed to pay $135,540 to settle U.S. Department of Labor charges that the company had violated provisions against minors operating hazardous machinery.
Having employed minors in dangerous jobs and maintained factories with horrible work conditions are bad enough, but the reasons for my not supporting Wal-Mart don't end there.
Employees are not paid well and receive inferior benefits. Wal-Mart pays an average hourly wage of $8.23 an hour, a wage which falls below basic living wage standards as well as poverty lines. According to an article on the PBS Web site, although "Wal-Mart employees start at the same salary as unionized employees in similar lines of work, they make 25 percent less than their unionized counterparts after two years at the job."
In addition, the company's health plan has received close media scrutiny for being inadequate for many employees who can afford it.
The Wall Street Journal reported that in 2002, average spending on health benefits for each of Wal-Mart's covered employees was $3,500, or almost 40 percent less than the average for all U.S. corporations and 30 percent less than the rest of the wholesale-retail industry. Not only does this hurt Wal-Mart employees, but it affects the taxpayer as well.
A November 2004 New York Times article cited a study in Georgia that found thousands of children of Wal-Mart employees were in the state's health care program at a cost to taxpayers of $10 million a year. The same article said a hospital in North Carolina found that 31 percent of its 1,900 patients were Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid, and an additional 16 percent were Wal-Mart employees with no insurance. Also, a study in August 2004 by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley said that the health care expenses of uninsured Wal-Mart employees were costing the state $32 million a year in taxpayer funds.
Because Wal-Mart insists on mistreating its employees, I for one refuse to shop there. The low prices may continue to entice you into going to Wal-Mart but remember that whenever you spend a dollar there, you are supporting a company that could hurt a community as much as it might help it.
William Moore is a student at Elmira Free Academy and a member of the Star-Gazette Youth Editorial Board, which produces its own Opinion page -- ListenUp -- every other Monday.
