Wal-Mart was formed by Sam Walton in 1962 with the intention of concentrating on small towns and not on downtown retail districts. He had set up the super store from small beginnings on a town's interiors, stock various kinds of goods in the shelves, and sell the goods to the customers at comparatively lower prices. The progress of Wal-Mart has been tremendous, with the expansion to 4,300 stores recently from 874 stores in the year 1985. Wal-Mart is a 39-year-old retail store which is very popular in U.S. companies, and it is only behind ExxonMobil in annual turnover. (Lawsuits a volume business at Wal-Mart) It could be witnessed that every week, certain 138 million do their shopping at Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart has its retail stores in all states and more than 80% of U.S. families have had made at least a single purchase from a Wal-Mart retail store. (Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains)
Should identify the arguments of Wal-mart management and the employees in the recent lawsuits. Basically the pros and cons
Wal-Mart, the world's largest company has become the target of criticism by being dragged into several court cases and it has become the target of the biggest sex-discrimination court cases in U.S. history. It has also been criticized for its low wages being paid to its employees, policies of the company which promotes anti-unionism. (Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains) Workers argue that for each Wal-Mart retail shop being started, there are jobs being lost to the society, the tax base reduces, employees having health benefits reduces, and employees who are to become eligible for welfare expands. (Wal-Mart Myths and Realities) Even customers who prefer the cheap prices of Wal-Mart products are against its gender discrimination and against its anti-employer policies. (Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains) According to industry analysts the reason for Wal-Mart becoming the target of several court cases is that because the most-sought out and most popular private-sector company. (Lawsuits a volume business at Wal-Mart)
Everybody do not have an all-encompassing details of all the country's court cases, but according to law analysts, Wal-Mart is being dragged into the maximum number of court cases in U.S. than any other company, other than the U.S. government. Wal-Mart, which promotes as a company which is friendly with its customers, is trying to transform the face of corporate court cases by determinedly opposing several cases in spite of the fact that it would have been less expensive for Wal-Mart if it would have had an out of court-settlement. Such a strategy is against the usual policy which has been resorted to by companies for several years to have out of court-settlement to reduce expenses for running court cases. (Lawsuits a volume business at Wal-Mart)
Wal-Mart, having 3,250 retail stores throughout the country, has around 1 million employees in all the stores together. (Wal-Mart Loses Unpaid Overtime Case) In the year 2002, Wal-Mart had more than $8 billion on revenues of $246 billion. This was an average of $7,300 which was a rate per employee. In the year 2001 the hourly employees of Wal-Mart averaged $8.23 per hour, and this was much lower less than the national average hourly income of retail employees, which consisted of both union and non-union employees. (Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains) Wal-Mart workers have filed lawsuits in different states throughout U.S. On several matters relating to employment with Wal-Mart. Among the several lawsuits a federal judge in San Francisco area gave the ruling that 1.6 million female workers may file lawsuits as a group activity based on the criticism that they are paid wages which are lower than the opposite sex and very few among them are being promoted to higher posts. 3 The historic lawsuit which was filed by 6 women as a group activity in the year 2001 accused Wal-Mart that they are paid wages which are lower than the opposite sex and very few among them are being promoted to higher posts. (Robert, 10) There are 40 such group-activity court cases which are against Wal-Mart in 30 states of the country. In these court cases which travel from California to New York, have involvement of several thousands of employees who several million dollars in back pay. (Wal-Mart Loses Unpaid Overtime Case) The company has been involved in court cases whereby employees have sued that hourly workers are being forced to work overtime without additional payment. (Analysis: Wal-Mart's growing pains)
The workers alleged that they were forced to work at least for 45 hours per week and at times they were to work leading to 72 hours a week at no additional pay. (Robert, 11) Large worker premium payments and huge deductibles...
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