Walmart and low wage employment practices

Wal*Mart

We have recognized that Walmart does not view its wage and benefit structure as being a problem. On its Website, Walmart announces what the company is doing to improve its image in terms of sustainability and other ethical issues ("Walmart Announces New Commitments to Drive Sustainability Deeper into its Global Supply Chain," 2012). However, the company fails to mention anything about how their low wages are hurting communities and the economy as a whole. This approach to public relations must change if the company is to continue being successful. Walmart needs to be more proactive, and at least start pretending to care about its employees.

There are several political image-boosters that Walmart can use to improve its public relations without actually making changes to its human resources policies. One strategy is to feature an employee of the week on the company Website. This will make the company seem like it cares about its employees, even if it does nothing to change its actual policy towards wages and benefits. The feature section will give a "human" face to what is otherwise a large and impersonal company that is widely perceived as uncaring. Another political move that Walmart can and should make would be to locate communities in which Walmart wages are actually living wages. Walmart can then make it appear as if their employees are doing just fine. Another public relations approach would be to communicate the message that low wages are actually beneficial for communities because it helps keep retail prices affordable to the very poor. For example, the company can release a statement saying that "Wal-Mart could not raise wages without raising prices which, he argues, would hurt poor and low-income consumers," (Dube, Graham-Squire, Jacobs & Luce, 2007, p. 2).

These political strategies are not good long-term solutions for the company, though. They might help to temporarily boost the image of Walmart in the mainstream media, but the company needs to do much more to actually endear themselves with employees, consumers, communities, and stakeholders. The best approach for Walmart would be to actually raise their baseline pay for all retail workers and offer good benefits beyond increased wages.

As Dube, et al. (2007) point out, raising the wages would be most beneficial to the poorest employees: "workers in families with total incomes below 200% of the federal poverty level," (p. 3). Furthermore, by raising its wages, Walmart would be releasing taxpayers from the burden of supporting those who would no longer need to be supported by food stamps and welfare. "Wal-Mart workers' reliance on public assistance due to substandard wages and benefits has become a form of indirect public subsidy to the company," (Dube & Jacobs, 2004, p. 8).