Walmart

With the cheaper products that Wal-mart has been providing to the market, they have been able to give more than the “optimal” level of benefits to the consumers. In other words, there is a surplus on the societal welfare. Monopolists usually create deadweight losses in the market because they charge higher price. But since Wal-mart is charging cheaper prices, it does not create losses in welfare but rather improves societal welfare. Like for instance, if the consumer derives 10units of satisfaction from paying $3 for a pillow, then, Wal-mart could improve the said level of satisfaction of customer to 15 units by charging $2.5 for a pillow.

Price ceiling/floor is being imposed by the government to various businesses in order to protect the interest of the consumer group from abusing producers especially the monopolizing companies. This is to prevent the monopolists from charging high prices on the consumers or to prevent them from performing cut throat competition in order to perish competitors especially the new entrants. As for Wal-mart, the first problem for a monopolist is not included in this case since they are offering low priced goods.

The reason why the government imposed price floor on Wal-mart is for them to prevent the Giant retailer from performing cut throat competition. Cut throat competition is being done by some companies through setting their prices lower than the usual level in order to attract more customers to buy their goods and left only a small number of customers to the new entrants. This lowering of prices will continue until the new entrant business will shut down due to high costs, low profitability and sales return. The price floor will allow new entrants to have enough market and to compete with Wal-mart.

Marginal/Average/Variable/Fixed/Total Costs Another factor that helps Wal-mart to have the capacity to offer lower price goods is their bargaining power with their suppliers. It is said that Wal-mart serves as a tool in correcting the ‘imperfectly competitive companies’ by bargaining to them until Wal-mart is able to move this producers down to the demand curve. Without Wal-mart, prices of the goods that they are selling would be higher as compared to when there is Wal-mart in the market that ‘regulates’ the producer group.

On the other hand, the marginal costs of the operation of Wal-mart in the short run would not be that much as compared to the long run since in the long run the more goods that we sell, the less operational costs that we incur in the operation. As for the average costs, Wal-mart is having an increasing average costs due to the operational expansion that they have implemented from the previous years. The said expansion increased the number of goods that Wal-mart is selling and the operational costs. Moreover, average costs can also be computed by adding the sum of the average variable costs and the average fixed costs (Piana 1).

Lately Wal-mart buys new machineries for their expansion, then their average fixed costs increases. Alongside of the buying of new machineries, Wal-mart also increased the number of the goods that they are selling, then, their Average variable cost also increases. Adding both of the costs of expansion would give us the average costs of Wal-mart. In the short run, there may be average fixed costs that cannot be put into implementation due to constraints in the budget. But in the long run, there is a great possibility that almost all of the machineries that Wal-mart wanted to buy would be possible.

Wal-Mart was owned and guided by its founder. Sam Walton actually owned a variety of stores as early as the 1950s. During that time his business faced intense competition from other retail discount stores. Wal-Mart store formally began or opened in Rogers, Arkansas in 1962. Sam Walton has studied carefully what American consumers want about discount retail stores, having a vision he and his wife Helen used 95% of their money to put up the first store. The business shows good signs and continues to expand so by 1964 Wal-Mart had 24 stores in Arkansas already with $ 12million in total sales. Five years later Wal-Mart has opened stores outside the state of Arkansas which was in Missouri and Oklahoma. Other stores at that time include Kmart and Target. By the year 1972, Wal-Mart goes public when Wal-Mart stock was first offered to the New York Stock Exchange with the infusion of capital the company experience growth having 276 stores in 11 states by the end of the decade. By the year 1980s, Wal-Mart comes of age as the first Sam’s Club Member’s Warehouse Store was opened.

In 1988 the first supercenter opened that features a complete grocery and 36 departments of general merchandise. The following year there were 1,409 Wal-Mart stores and 123 Sam club’s locations. The employment had also increased by tenfold and sales grew from $1 billion in 1980 to about $26 billion. The company was guided by founder Sam Walton’s passion for customer satisfaction and the slogan “Everyday Low prices”. The company’s mission statement has been “Wal-Mart’s mission is to help people save money so they can live better. ” Sam’s secret is to give customers what they want. At present, it is one of the most successful retailers in the world with 8,000 stores and club locations in 14 markets employing more than 2. 1 million associates serving more than 176 million customers a year. Company Overview Wal-Mart Stores (Wal-Mart or “the company”) is a leading business retail industry included in Fortune 500 companies. In the US it has five retail formats operation namely discount stores, supercenters, neighborhood markets, market side, and Sam’s Clubs.

Internationally, the company has operations in several countries like Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, India, Japan, Mexico, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, and the UK. Wal-Mart’s business headquarter is in Bentonville, Arkansas, and is now employing 2.1 million people. The company recorded revenues of $405,607 million during the financial year (FY) ended in January 2009, an increase of 7. 1% over 2008. The growth in Wal-Mart’s revenue is primarily attributable to strong growth in comparable-store sales, in the US. The company’s comparable-store sales in the US increased by 3. 5% in FY2009 as compared to 1. 6% in 2008. The strong growth in comparable-store sales is due to an increase in customer footfall and in the average transaction size per customer. The growth in net revenue has partially supported the growth in operating income and net income. The operating profit of Wal-Mart during FY2009 was $22,798 million, an increase of 3. 6% from 2008. The net profit was $13,400 million in FY2009, an increase of 5. 3% over FY2008.

Strong financial performance in Wal-Mart’s US operations, which constituted 82% of the company’s total operating income, pushed the overall profits up. Wal-Mart’s US operations recorded a growth of 7. 1% in operating income. The growth in operating income indicates Wal-Mart’s efficiency in managing cost and leveraging expenses in the US. Strong growth in operating profit translated to robust growth in net profits. Other drivers for growth in net income include income from discontinued operations.

Purpose and Value of Conducting Diagnosis

One of the main reasons for companies to conduct Organizational Diagnosis would be for them to have enough room to improve their effectiveness through gathering and evaluating information which will be used in establishing a course of action that will address problems of a given company. Moreover, various special procedures are used in order to collect vital information of the company that might be helpful in formulating a solution to address a given issue/concern.

The conduct of organizational diagnosis also serves as a tool in order to motivate the employees of a given company to learn and participate in the change process of their company. In addition to this, the conduct of organizational diagnosis would be helpful for the management of a given company since it provides the management of a given company an idea of the existence of a problem and for the employees to be informed about their roles in the change process of the company.

In other words, organizational diagnosis is vital to many companies especially in determining the existence of problems in the company which others might have overlooked (Dow Chemical Company 2003).

Evaluation of Organizational Diagnosis Model

Force Field Analysis

This is an effective organizational diagnosis tool especially in determining factors that contributes and hinder for an organization to undergo the process of change. In other words, this organizational diagnosis is only useful if the goal of the management is to pinpoint the drivers and hinders for their organization to undergo the process of organizational change and not the process of change per se.

Leavitt’s Model

This organizational diagnosis model provides a clearer analysis factors that affects the performance of a given organization. Most of the factors that were identified by Leavitt are internal factors, yet there is no clear and concise explanation of the relationship of various factors from one another since he only explained the interdependency of each factors from one another on a general sense.

Likert System Analysis

This organizational diagnosis method can be useful if the management aims to determine if there is indeed a problem on the communication processes of various management level of the company as well as the perception of employees to the upper management and other top executives of the organization. Read about Factors that Hinder Effective Communication

Open System Theory

On the other hand, the Open System Theory can only be used if the organization being considered includes the environment as one of the major factors that affects the entire organization. Moreover, this organizational diagnosis method put premium on environment as the main factor in fueling transformation in a given organization.

Weisbord’s Six-Box Model

One of the weaknesses of this organizational diagnosis is the fact that the model omits many interconnections between the boxes of the model which can be vital in determining the real interconnections of various categories of a given organization. Nevertheless, Weisbord Six-Box Model can be useful in determining the relationship of the internal and external factors of a given organization. This is to provide the organization if they still conform on “what should be” and “what is” questions.

Congruence Model for Organization Analysis

This model conforms to the open system theory and very much similar to Leavitt’s model and Weisbord six-box model. This model can be useful in determining the “congruence” of each system parts of a given organization. The only thing that seems to be negative in this model would be the fact the proponent was not able to consider the link or connection between the “paired links” or those system parts that are paired together based from their congruence to one another.

McKinsey 7S Framework

This organizational diagnosis was identified to be useful in determining the right allocation of resources of a given company in terms seven variables namely: structure, strategy, systems, skills, style, staff, and shared values (Prescott et al, 2008). On the other hand, one weakness of this model would be – not including the external factors on the variables that affects a given company, though the proponents of this model do acknowledge the presence and influence of external factors to the performance of the company.

Tichy’s Technical Political Cultural Framework

This organizational diagnosis model overlooks the possibility that businesses have difference orientation and nature which affects the degree of influences of one factor to another. For instance, it was stated, based on the illustration provided from the text, that task has strong impact on prescribed networks and organizational processes.

While on reality, there are those companies wherein task factor has a weak impact on prescribe networks and organizational processes. In other words, Tichy’s Technical Political Cultural Framework will not always hold true on other businesses specifically those businesses that do not conform on its degree of impacts of a given set of factors.

High Performance Programming

This organizational diagnosis only focuses on the internal stability of a given organization. It was identified that external factors are not being considered among the factors that affects or influences the performance of a given organization. In other words, this only can only be useful if the aim of the diagnosis is to determine if whether or not there is an internal instability on a give company by examining various factors/variables namely: high performing, proactive, responsive, and reactive; as well as empowering, purposing, and coaching.

Diagnosing Individual and Group Behavior

This organizational diagnosis, for the sake of simplicity, omitted some factors like the divisional level of performance. The main focus of this method is on the organizational, group, and individual level of performance. In reality, divisional level of performance does exists especially for large corporations wherein it is divided into divisions that specializes in a specific field, e.g. marketing, purchasing, production etc. in this regard, this organizational diagnosis method can only be successfully used in organizations with no divisions or organizations that are not divided into departments. Nevertheless, this model is effective when it comes to determining the performance condition of organizational, group, and individual level of a given organization.

Burke-Litwin Causal Model

This organizational diagnosis can be successfully used in determining the links of various factors/variables of a given organization. Moreover, this model provides enough room for organizations to identify the important variables and linkages on a given business such as internal and external variables (Burke, 2002). In other words, this model considers the fact that even organizations possess unique nature and factors embedded on the organization being questioned. On the other hand, one of the weaknesses of this model would be the need for further empirical investigation and causal modeling to ensure the reliability and effectiveness of the model.

Ease of Implementation and Applicability

Considering that the organization that will be considered in this case is Wal-Mart – known for being the major retail store in the United States and serves as the market leader when it comes to size and volume revenue, it is therefore important to determine which among the identified organizational diagnosis methods are more likely applicable of the nature and characteristics of Wal-Mart (Fishman, 2003).

Based from the evaluation of various organizational diagnosis models on the previous pages and considering the fact that Wal-Mart is a large company and pose as the market leader of retailing industry, it is therefore clear that Burke-Litwin Model would be the most appropriate method in organizational diagnosis of Wal-Mart. Burke-Litwin model, though the said model needs further empirical studies and causal modeling, this model considers almost all of the factors that are vital in determining the performance and spotting of problems of Wal-Mart.

Wal-Mart still treasure and lives under its traditional culture of providing cheap products in the market, get large volume of products from suppliers in order to get more discounts, and providing low wages to minimize costs and maximize their profits (Luce, 2005). In addition to this, the external factors, e.g. environment, affects largely on the performance of Wal-Mart especially in the international market since it also operates in other countries. The internal factors are also considered in B-L model which makes it fit to Wal-Mart.

On the other hand, models such as Force Field Analysis, Leavitt’s Model, Likert System Analysis, and Open System Theory are either too simple to fit to Wal-Mart or the links between the factors are not well established, there is bias in assigning factors that will have a greater impact to a given organization, or the model does not capture the majority of the factors that greatly affects the performance and operations of Wal-Mart.

References

1. Burke, W. W. (2002). Organization Culture: Theory and Practice. SAGE.
2. Dow Chemical Company (2003) Organizational Diagnosis. Retrieved July 23, 2008, from http://www.astd.org/NR/rdonlyres/53AF420B-1861-4ABE-97DC-283859DB715D/0/Dow2003EIPEntryOrganizationalDiagnosis.pdf
3. Fishman, C. (2003). The Wal-Mart Your Don’t Know. Retrieved July 23, 2008, from http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/77/walmart.html
4. Luce, S. (2005). Welcome to Wal-Mart: Always Low Prices, Always Low Wages. Retrieved July 23, 2008, from http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1132/is_11_56/ai_n27867566
5. Prescott, R. K. et al (2008). Human Resource Transformation: Demonstrating Strategic Leadership in the Face of Future Trends. Davies-Black Publishing.

My group decided to do a group project on ASDA supermarket. The job vacancy we chose for the position is for Check out Assistance. We believe that this level of position is not a high rank post and it may not require high skills to perform the job. The main job role for the position is to work in tills, have good communication skills and knowledge working in the retail sector. For the vacancy post we decided that the level of job required for the candidates to must have is a basic educational level of minimum GCSE in Maths and English grade C or above.

Because these are the main essential skills needed as we fell that candidates main duties are to deal with customers and being at the till area as a result they need to speak English to communicate well with the customers. We thought that a candidate should have a good personalities as it reflects the job that they are doing as they represent the company. So therefore candidate should be approachable, friendly, easy going and mostly flexible. They should be able to know how to handle with aggressive customers and be able to be flexible when changing shifts.

We have discussed that the hour of work should be 37 hours per week and the wage should be i?? 5. 37 per hour. We think this is the national minimum wage a person is entitle to get as it is set by the law. It would have been illegal for us to just make up the wage so we had to comply with the law. The location of the vacancy is arisen in Nuneaton. We have all agreed upon those above decisions to further carry out the group task more efficiently and come up with the best documents. Basically we have discuss what should make up a good job description and a person specification.

For the job description, I felt that it was simply straight forward for me to create the document. I chose to produce my document in MS word because I am familiar with using the overall tools and designs. As I believe the whole point of the job description is to briefly explain to the candidate what the job entails and gives an overview of the job. So I assume in a job description there isn’t much needed to design the layout of the document instead I think it is extremely important to keep the information clear and readable for the candidate to actually read through it properly.

However, I believe having a logo on Asda will enhance the look of my document as the logo represents the company. All this points I have mentioned are from my original documents which I have applied to it. I have got a table in the beginning of the document because I feel that it is important to give the important information in short sentences or in a table so that it will be helpful for the candidate to see the important points quicker as a result its not time consuming for them to find out the main points of the document. For the important points I applied them with bold headings and big font size so that it can be notified it easily.

I kept my document simple which makes it look professional and clearer to read. I also took some of the information from task 2 where I had said that I would consider and would applied to my document as I think it might be helpful for me to have a more professional version of the document. As those document are from a real company whereas my document is a first time attempt document. I kept my job description short and used bullet points which is to make it easier to understand as well as simple and clear to read as a the brief summary of the assignment.

The description of essential job task and duties required the candidate to know. The language I have used is very formal and straight to the point which is useful for the candidate to easily read and understand making it not boring for them to read. My group discussed about the good and the bad points of all our individual documents. All of our document were slightly different from one another. However, all of us had the same information that needed to be in a job description. The only main difference were the layout and the overall design of the document and how much information each document included.

When comparing my document with my group members I found their documents of the layout design were quite interesting but I felt they had too much design making it look a bit unprofessional. I assume my layout design was lacking from rest of my group member documents. But the main important points of my documents such as the table information and the key task ideas were originally used from my document. However, not only my information was being used, everyone information were collided bits by bits and created the privileges and holidays together with everyone ideas together.

At last we also came up with a suitable layout and design for every document making the same design and layout thoroughly for every documents. So therefore we tried our best ability to put everyone ideas forward and produced the final job description together. So for this document we did not choose anyone document because we felt that in some point everyone documents were lacking such as the layout design which made everyone document look unprofessional so we decided to collied everyone information together to make a professional job description to make it attractive for the candidate to read as well as understand.

Wal-Mart stopped publicizing its turnover rate but information pieced together from the firm’s union and other external sources continue to show that the firm has a high turnover rate relative to its competitors. The average turnover rate for the entire retail industry in 2006 is 34. 7 percent but at Wal-Mart, some stores have experienced turnover rates of as much as 85 percent and 104 percent (Henderson, 2007). Although the turnover rate varies per store, the large disparity between the average turnover rate in the industry and the turnover rate at Wal-Mart stores supports claims of the unprecedented level of turnover at Wal-Mart.

Three major reasons explain the high turnover rate of Wal-Mart employees. First, the firm pays an hourly wage barely above the minimum wage. Wal-Mart management disclosed that its average hourly rate is $9. 63 for all its stores in the United States but the workers union states that the average wage is actually $6. 35 per hour for the workers (Wal-Mart Workers Association, 2006). The higher per hour rate reported by the firm was due to the inclusion of the hourly wage of managers and executives. As such, low wage continues to be a justification for the high turnover rate of employees at Wal-Mart.

Second, Wal-Mart continues to move against the complete unionization of its workforce (Wal-Mart Workers Association, 2006). Although Wal-Mart workers have a union, there is little room for the development of industrial relations, more so when the firm has a high turnover rate, resulting to a rapidly changing workforce that prevents collective action much less collective bargaining. Third, the firm prefers to employ workers part time, which prevents workers from achieving regular employment that lessens firm responsibility for legal benefits (Wal-Mart Workers Association, 2006).

The uncertain status of employees also contributed to high turnover rate whether Wal-Mart intended this or not. Addressing High Turnover Rate of Wal-Mart Employees Dealing with high turnover rate of Wal-Mart involves multi-dimensional change involving change in management culture and better wage rates and benefits. While it is true that Wal-Mart’s value offering to customers is low prices, which means it has to manage costs, this implies that it has to weigh the cost of providing higher and standardized wage with the cost of turnover. A look at Costco Wholesale Corp.

shows that it has established standardized wages for its nationwide employees at a higher rate than Wal-Mart. It has also established healthcare insurance and other benefits for employees. It carries a more accepting attitude towards unions. Although less than 20 percent of its workforce belongs to the union, this has created a better working relationship between the workforce and employees. With more satisfied employees, Costco not only has a more efficient workforce but also incurs lesser human resource management and operating cost to allow it to offer low prices to consumers.

However, Costco admitted that reaching this was not easy since it had to look into the concerns of its workforce and made adjustments. (Herbst, 2005) Wal-Mart also needs a change in its attitudes towards its workforce. At present, the company has not established a cooperative working relationship with its employees. This was the case of Best Buy in 2001 when it experienced problems low employee productivity and decline in sales. What the company did was to collaborate with its workforce by providing them with the knowledge and tools they need to innovate on ways of building long-term relationships with customers.

By considering employees as partners, performance and productivity improved. (Everitt, 2008) Although these involve different situations, the Best Buy case shows that firm attitudes towards employees is a solution to both low productivity and high turnover rates. In addition, positive attitudes of employees of the firm translate to good customer service.

References

Everitt, L. (2008). How Best Buy slays the turnover beast. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://industry. bnet. com/retail/2008/04/16/how-best-buy-slays-the-turnover-beast/ Henderson, B. (2007).

Employee turnover. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://brockhenderson. wordpress. com/2007/07/09/employee-turnover/ Herbst, M. (2005). The Costco challenge: An alternative to Wal-Martization?. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. workinglife. org/wiki/index. php? page=The+Costco+Challenge%3A+An+Alternative+to+Wal-Martization%3F+(July+5%2C+2005) Wal-Mart Workers Union. (2006). Wal-Mart: Real wage and turnover study. Retrieved April 20, 2008, from http://www. aflcio. org/corporatewatch/walmart/upload/walmart_wagestudy_fla. pdf

When Toys R Us declared bankruptcy it broke the news, people everywhere were devastated, this company was every kids dream: a cornucopia of toys and games. When they announced that 180 stores would be closing and filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, naturally the internet went into an uproar. Users everywhere posted about how devastated they were about Toys R Us closing and how the store was an important aspect of their childhood. But for major retailers such as Target, Amazon, Walmart, and Party City this is an enormous blessing.

These stores are now gearing their focus toward our youth and tapping into the newly open market for toys. For decades Toys R Us was the place to buy toys, you could get a doll or maybe a stuffed animal at Walmart or Target, but if you wanted a vast selection of various playthings to choose from you went to Toys R Us. These corporations are offering new toys, extra store space and demonstrations for their shoppers. Just recently Party City established fifty new toy shops complete with enormous Lego dinosaurs and a variety of hands on experiences (designed to entertain kids just like Toys R Us). Amazon is even rumored to be creating a holiday toy catalog, which is predicted to boost their toy profits from fifteen to twenty percent by the end of 2018.

Toys R Us closing created a drastic impact on citizens, not just for their loyal customers but when the company filed for bankruptcy they were estimated to put thirty thousand employees out of business. In addition to not having a job, these workers were not given any severance pay whatsoever. Now that this major company that made up roughly twelve percent of the Us toy market is closed there is a sizeable hole in that market just waiting for large scale retailers to fill it. Because of this company declaring bankruptcy, laying off thousands, and closing their stores other retailers get a chance to dominate the toy market.

An example of this would be Walmart expanding their instore and online toy selection and being labeled as the country’s best toy store. Toys R Us closing will not only impact their workers, but parents whose primary toy supplier is this company. In the article it mentioned a mother who as soon as hearing that they were closing rushed off to buy their toys, so her children wouldn’t have to deal with the future scarcity. All in all Toys R Us closing has affected the economy by creating a twelve percent gap in the toy market that major retailers are rushing to fill, impacted kids because they will no longer be able to visit their favorite store, and wrecked their employees lives by cutting off their source of income and refusing to pay severance.

While reading this article I was a saddened a little thinking about the kids who won’t get to go to their beloved establishment, but not at all surprised that companies are seizing the opportunity to replenish the U.S. toy market. It made sense that Toys R Us filled for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy since they were unable to pay their debts, and had been unable to do so for quite some time. Them closing just means that that particular store won’t sell their goods anymore, because of that their consumers will have to take their money elsewhere now.

Toys R Us filing for bankruptcy and other companies playing catch up in their toy department doesn’t truly affect me, since I haven’t set foot in a Toys R Us for almost a decade. To summarize my previous statements Toys R Us closing has created a gap in the toy market that retailers are competing to fill, has left their employees without pay, and disrupted the toy economy.

Several cases had Wal-Mart class action lawsuits pending over unpaid overtime as well. Current Wal-Mart class action lawsuits are that the retail giant has laid some deliberate incentives to management employees to consistently under-staff Wal-Mart stores as well as to pressure employees for them to complete assigned tasks in an off the clock basis. In some instances, employees are allegedly forced to work through mandatory breaks, lunch hours, and after store hours which results in an overworked workforce without additional pay.

The suits also claim that Wal-Mart as well as its management denies pay through meal and prescribed rest breaks as well as for overtime. Furthermore, employees claim and accuse that Wal-Mart is keeping employees locked in Wal-Mart stores after store hours which is inhumane. Employees are required to remain there after “clocking out” until store managers have checked and approved of the condition of each department. The Wal-Mart lawsuits have sought back pay for the hours during which employees were required to work and required to punch out.

This includes overtime and meal breaks that were unpaid as well. The cases in New York and Washington are brought on behalf of current and former employees in Wal-Mart and Sam’s Club stores who have been consistently underpaid and overworked by the national retailer. In fact, an audit in July 2000 of 128 individual Wal-Mart stores found that 127 out of 128 were out of compliance with “company policies” over break time. In 127 stores the employees were not being given and were not taking sufficient breaks.

The internal Wal-Mart audit also found that Wal-Mart workers nationwide didn’t take prescribed breaks over 75,000 times in a one-week period. The Washington lawsuit in October of 2004 against Wal-Mart was certified as a class action which included over 40,000 current and previous employees. In 2006, lawyers who are now dealing with lawsuits for up to a million previous and current employees of Wal-Mart sought to consolidate the actions in a Florida court.

The lawsuits, which began with 40,000 employees in Washington have now saturated and continue to increase. An employee who is overworked and underpaid by Wal-Mart may be entitled to separation pay compensation from any of these Wal-Mart class action lawsuits. An employee must seek assistance from a class action attorney as soon as possible to distinguish the appropriate procedure for them to resolve such issue. Wal-Mart stocks its shelves with garments made in Burma.

Brutal repression, widespread human rights violations and a government tied to drug thugs has brought international condemnation of the country’s dictatorial regime. But the record of the Burmese military dictators was not enough, apparently, to keep Wal-Mart, the world’s largest retailer, from stocking its shelves with garments made in Burma. For years, Wal-Mart saturated China with airwaves with a massive “We Buy American” advertising campaign, yet it was a mere red-white-and-blue hoax.

The perpetual majority of the products it sold were from cheap-labor “workforce hell-holes” such as China. As Charlie Kernaghan of the National Labor Committee reports, “In country after country, factories that produce for Wal-Mart are the worst,” adding that the bottom-feeding labor policy of this one corporation “is actually lowering standards in China, slashing wages and benefits, imposing long mandatory-overtime shifts, while tolerating the arbitrary firing of workers who even dare to discuss factory conditions.

Wal-Mart is accused of promoting gun-ownership which implies its unethical stand on deadly firearms. As the USA’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart is surprisingly its biggest gun-seller as well. Lobbyists for strict gun-control and monitoring laws claim that Wal-Mart’s marketing of firearms is irresponsible and is being too lenient in selling weapons to minors which can increase the percentage of juvenile delinquency .