Why are there so many people against Wal-Mart stores?

Question

I keep seeing places online where people are trashing Wal-Mart and telling people not to shop there, because they are greedy and only have their own interest at heart. I live in a small, rural area, so it is not like I have a huge selection for places to shop. We don't have a Target, K-Mart, Cosco, or any of those type places. It is either Wal-Mart or Brookshires (a grocery store) and Brookshires doesn't have clothes, automotive, crafts and stuff like that, plus they are alot more expensive than Wal-Mart. Plus, I just like Wal-Mart.

I am just curious what the big issue against Wal-Mart is all about. I have never really had a problem with them personally.

All I know is, that Wal-Mart has some great deals. I don't really care what goes on behind their doors, as long as I can get what I need at a great price. If the employees don't like it there, they have the option of quiting and going somewhere else. They aren't being forced to work there.

Rowegain: You have got to be kidding, right????? White trash is not all that shops at Wal-Mart. I don't know what world you live in. And my town only has about 300 people in it, so I go to the next bigger town, which only has about 9,000. That town has had a Wal-Mart since I was a kid, and I am 29 now. So they didn't push anyone out of the town. That is not why we don't have other stores. As far as the "rich" people thinking they are too good to shop at Wal-Mart, well that is just stupid. Maybe that is how it is in larger cities, but not where I live. Our Wal-Mart brings in every type of person: rich, poor, old, young, black, white, hispanic, white-trash, and any other type of person you can name. Who came up with the idea that Wal-Mart is for us "white trash scum" and that the nicer places are for the "rich" people? If that is how you really feel, you must be one of those "rich" people who think you are better than anyone you deem as "white trash". Good, more Wal-Mart for me!!!

Answer 1

Well i did see a thing on 20/20 one time where they had a woman from sri lanka or someplace like that.she made clothing for 50 cents an hour,and the biggest buyer was wal mart. she said the amount of money that one outfit cost would feed her family for over a week. BUT wal mart was not to blame fully the owner of the company was pocketing most of the money and paying the employees as little as possible.
i would also like to reply to a couple of you replys such as rowegains on suburban cities against them due to minorities. i live in new jersey and they are alot of them here.im not talking souther jersey either i live 30 minutes from NYC. and there are wal-marts even closer than that to the city.
however they do not have super walmarts due partially to the danger of being open 24-7,partially due to selling guns(highly resrticted up here) and the main 2 grocery stores up here would lose alot of buisness.
I do shop alot at wal mart due to their prices,but if i am looking for something in particular i will go online and see who has it and the better deal,then go to that store and buy it. i don't care if it is k-mart,wal-mart,toys are us,shoprite or what have you. it is who has the better deals on what i need that gets my buisness. Distance and route also plays a role.for example kmart and wal mart are both about 5 miles away.however walmart i just go up the road a 1/4 mile hop on the higway and it is right of the exit about 5 miles later.k mart on the otherhand i have to drive through town and constant stop and go which kills milage. so if im at home and want something i tend to hit wal mart.if i am at work (about a 1/4 mile from k-mart) and i need something or the wife calls to tell me she need something i go to k-mart.
point being i will shop at whatever place that will hurt my wallet the least overall. with a soon to be 4 year old that is constantly growing i need to save as much money on clothing and such for him as possible,and still have him look nice. you will be surprised at howmany "rich" families shop at the"white trash/minority"stores as you call them because they have young children that grow out of clothes fast.
to Mary i've got news for you sweetie,VERY FEW PLACES give benifits to part time employees.walmart didn't hurt levis it is those young punks that want names on their butts like tommy,diesel,guess and so on. and mommy and daddy will get it so their babys don't cry.as far as im concerned if walmart shut anyone down i hope it is the places that sell those type clothes and assesories.

Answer 2

To give you an idea where I am coming from with my answer, my mother worked at wal-mart for 11 years and I got a good understanding what goes on. Also I have witnessed first hand at the problems people have with wal-marts. Altho I will shop at wal-mart I do not care to and do not particularly care for the chain. Wal-marts has problems treating their employees with respect my mom had a hard time the whole time she worked there she had to take them to court to get them to pay workers comp for an injury she received on the job and it is not like she is money hungry all she wanted was for them to pay the doctor bills and they fought tooth and nail not too. Then as if that was not enough they kept trying to switch my mom to nights which she could not do, and when it came closer and closer to her being able to make her retirement the laid down an ultimatum either she does nights or she was fired so she quit. They often cause problems with trash the area around wal-marts are dumps because of the mass amounts of trash that they produce. They also put smaller companies out of business that cannot compete with their prices like your brookshires, then once they have no competition the are free to raise their prices however the want. So you can see how wal-marts can make some people very disgruntled.

Answer 3

No, But Wal Mart can drastically reduce prices in a new store, absorb the cost of that store by the others, enough to force other businesses into a situation where they cannot survive. Of course it's scary when Wal Mart doesn't offer health care but then turns around and instructs their employees to get on state medical which, in the end, costs everyone whether they shop there or not.

Answer 4

Theie are two problems people see.

One thing many don't like is that the don't pay enough for the typical full-time worker in a store to live comfortably, given that the benefits they offered to employees were not very good, etc. (They've improved some over the last year or so due to public outcry) Meanwhile, their prices are so low that they drive other businesses out.

In a small community in particular, this can have a negative impact on everyone. Some very detailed studies have been done (don't remember the numbers, but the LA Times did a multi-part story about all of this a couple years ago...) that found that even though all of us can benefit from lower prices, the net impact on the local economy is negative:

- all that money being spent is going to Walmart, not to your neighbors
- some of your neighbors will lose their jobs or businesses
- some of your neighbors will be forced to work at WalMart because they have no other reasonable choice, and they'll be getting payed less than they would have at a mom and pop shop, for instance.

Let's say you're an auto mechanic in this small town. Yes, your family may save a few hundred bucks a year on groceries and clothes, etc. But, that benefit will be outweighed by the fact that YOU will have less business due to competition from Walmart for parts and more importanly, people that might have brought their car to you will be unable to do so because they're out of a job.
As an auto mechanic, how many customers do you have to lose to bring your annual income down a few hundred bucks? Not many...

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The other problems is that because they demand such low prices from their suppliers, they drive manufacturing jobs out of this country, or at the very least force those suppliers to pay THEIR employees less just to survive.

Answer 5

One of the big issues people have is how they treat their employees: low wages, unpaid work, no breaks. You say that no one is forcing them to work there, but you also said that there is only one other store in your town. Where should they work then?

This further concerns people because the employees of Wal-Mart end up on public assistance. (Medicaid, WIC, energy and housing assistance, etc.) Our tax dollars pay for that. Wal-Mart could afford to pay a living wage and provide decent health coverage, but instead they let the tax payers take care of it. President and CEO Lee Scott said in 2005, "In some of our states, the public program may actually be a better value - with relatively high income limits to qualify, and low premiums." [Transcript Lee Scott Speech 4/5/05]

Price gouging is another thing that bothers people. Wal-Mart moves into a town. They keep their prices ridiculously low (they can afford to do that) until they put every Hardware Hank, Red Owl and Bob's Auto out of business. Then, since the people have no other choices for stores to shop at, Wal-Mart can then raise their prices to whatever they want to. Picture that on a national level. It really is a big issue (I think so anyway).

What I've mentioned is really just the tip of the iceburg. Please check out these links.
http://wakeupwalmart.com/facts/
http://walmartwatch.com/

Answer 6

Ok i have heard enough of Walmart bashing, and some of the ignorance involved. FIRST it's not WALMARTS, show me the sigh with the "s" at the end.
now when the economy was really bad and companies were closing and people were out of work, walmart was building stores and hiring. Yeah maybe they don't give everyone 40+ hours and overtime but the pay isn't as bad as most people think. The BIGGEST misconcepyion is that walmart only pays minimum wage. They can start off some people as high as $9 dollars an hours or more depending on experience. plus you get a raise EVERY year. A lot of companies can't afford raises at all, or base raises on production or senority. Plus there is room for advancement to management positions. They offer 401k, stock, profit sharing, 2-3 week vacations, personal days off sick days Holiday pay, funeral pay, and insurance with includes optical and dental. More benefits then most people. the do not discriminate in haring except that you have a clean record and be drug free.....DUH every company should do that anyway right? As for pushing the little man out. Although i agree that small business is what shaped America, Blame Osama Obama for the failure of small business.It is supply and demand. if people had sucjh a big problem they would not have shopped there when they opened. The rise in price is not just due to them gouging, it is due to soaring gas and beef prices, theft,and having to pay workman's comp for accident and for insurance to pay for accident of customers.....some stupid and frivolus . THAT is what raises the cost. Hey y'all you want to keep prices down? DON"T F'ING STEAL!!!!! The same ones whosteal them blind are the same ones who complain about the prices and most of those are having the government buy their food for them. Hey the grass may sem greener in you neighbors yard, until you have to mow it. And as for associates with bad attitudes. Again peopl it isn't always walmart, try working you butt off and get cuss out DAILY by people who have no respect for people who ACTUALLY work for a living. I saw a woman totally berate an associate just because they stopped selling acertain brand of sausage.This poor girl who was just a cashier and had absolutely NOTHINg to do with the price was reduce to tears by this. It is easy to blame Walmart for all of yours, and societies problems. but in the end you will shop there and you will know many people who work there. Most of the "former walmart" workers who have negative comments are just disgruntled workers who have nothing better to do. I am disable and was fired for getting injured on the job( not at walmart) my wife has worked efor years if it wasn't for walmart i would have been homeless. She has been there 8 years and makes over $12 per hour. getting 36-40 hours a week. so quit bitching and get a life!!!

Answer 7

From experience, I worked at Wal-Mart twice. Their full time is 28 hours a week. They are allowed to work you 10 weeks full time and then in the 11th week full time they have to start giving you benefits. They worked me 10 full weeks 40 hours then the 11th week 10 hours or so, then no benefits..I barely got minimum wage. I ask them and applied to move up to cust. service manager..I was told they only hire people with management experience..That next day they hired someone in that position who knew NOTHING about it..and had never worked in retail only because he was a friend of the manager..He knew less than I did.

You can never find an employee if you need help. If you have 1 item, it takes 45 minutes to get checked out..The employees and managers are rude (and with the pay, I don't blame them). Prices keep going up, even though they say they dropping..Quality of their items sucks. Sam Walton would be rolling over in his grave if he knew what his stores had turned into...They are putting all the good, decent, honorable, good little businesses out of business. Now they have discontinued their lay a way and tried to make up for it by offering $4.00 generic drugs...I don't care if I have to p ay $10.00 for generic drugs...at least I don't have to wait 4 hours to get them.

Answer 8

I like Wal-Malt, I asked a simeler question (and it got removed!! I don't even know why!) but most of my answears were that it was dirty, expecnive (witch I don't really get because my Wal-Mart is cheap!! That's why I like it!), that there were kids running around all over the place, they did not treat there employs right (then how come they don't just leave?) or that they were driving small busnuisse out. But I mean if you want to by a gallon of milk and one place is selling it for 2.00 and another is selling it for 3.00 then were are you going to by it from? Really why go and bye the more expecsive one just because it is from a faimly owned busnisse? Whatever is cheap and works I get!


But to each is his own....

Answer 9

Here in the last little bit there was this boycott going on of Wal-Mart stores that had to do with them giving thousands of dollars to some kind of gay organization, or something like that. And they had joined some kind of Gay Chamber of Commerce or something. So, several Christian organizations were planning a boycott and encouraging others to do the same. Last I heard though, Wal-Mart decided not to support anything that is concidered "contoversial", so the organizations lifted the boycott. That's all I know........I like Wal-Mart, it's about the only place we have around here to shop also.

Answer 10

I really haven't heard too much about Wal-Mart being trashed, I have heard about Target and people saying not to shop there but that is b/c they don't support our troops and of course, since it's war time,people are very sensitive to that. I do believe that I read that Target is based out of another country all together unlike Wal-Mart which is "home-grown".