Wal-Mart seems fairly innocuous from a distance. Sure, it’s convenient to be able to pick up new clothes, groceries and a spare tire in one trip. It’s even more convenient at such remarkably low prices.
Wal-Mart maintains a less than stellar reputation, but this has more to do with the superstore’s customers and employees than with Wal-Mart itself. People often view the retail giant with an air of condescension—the “People of Walmart” website, cataloging strange or poorly-dressed patrons, exemplifies this best.
In the infamous words of Paris Hilton, “What’s Wal-Mart? Do they sell, like, wall stuff?” Let’s give Hilton some credit—she claimed to be kidding, after all. And I believe her in this regard. To a notoriously wealthy person, Wal-Mart is an institution that caters to what American society deems as the lowest common denominator, a level so far below her comprehension.
This collective attitude toward Wal-Mart seems strange considering that Sam Walton, founder of Wal-Mart, and his family is wealthier than the bottom 42 percent of Americans. Combined.
With Wal-Mart’s being ranked number one in the 2014 Fortune 500’s list of largest companies by revenue, one has to wonder why we attach such a stigma to shopping at Wal-Mart. The sheer volume of revenue the corporation collects suggests that most American people do, in fact, shop there—whether we like to admit it or not.
Wal-Mart prides itself on the affordability of its products, evident in its slogan “Save Money. Live Better.” It’s noteworthy that this attribute, rather than product quality, is Wal-Mart’s selling point.
Tracy Morgan, an American comedian and actor best known for his role on 30 Rock, was severely injured this past June in a six car collision after a Wal-Mart semi-truck rear-ended his limousine bus. The pileup killed comedian James McNair, a passenger in Morgan’s bus. The driver of the semi-truck was Kevin Roper, a Wal-Mart employee who had been awake for more than 24 hours and driving 20 miles over the speed limit. Roper had worked 13.5 hours before the crash, though federal rules prohibit truckers from working more than 14 hours a day and may only drive for 11 hours, according to CNN.
Morgan and several others involved in the wreck filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart, claiming that the company “not only failed to condemn, but condoned” employees repeatedly ignoring limits placed on shift lengths, particularly when driving.
How did Wal-Mart respond to the lawsuit? Morgan’s injuries and McNair’s death “were caused, in whole or in part, by the plaintiffs’ failure to properly wear an appropriate available seatbelt restraint device.”
Though many hoped that Morgan’s case would draw attention to the conditions that Wal-Mart employees frequently have to endure (Morgan’s crash is hardly an exceptional occurrence), Wal-Mart blamed the victims for their injuries and denied their right to sue.
This case made headlines due to Morgan’s celebrity status, but there are other incidents that demonstrate Wal-Mart’s rampant mistreatment of its employees. Although the company was deemed to be “wildly successful” based on its own “corporate fact sheet,” Wal-Mart eliminated healthcare coverage for 30,000 part-time workers and increased healthcare costs for the remainder of its employees on Oct. 8. Wal-Mart also raised the premiums for the cheapest health plan by 19 percent to $21.90 every two weeks—a substantial charge for full-time workers earning on average only $12.92 an hour.
In 2004, Wal-Mart even shut down a store in Canada six months after it unionized, effectively silencing any protest the 190 fired employees may have had.
The popular dismissive outlook toward Wal-Mart as a place where the “lower class” congregates is an example of the classism that pervades American culture.
Many of Wal-Mart’s workers rely on food stamps, subsidized housing and Medicaid because their wages are not adequate, according to Forbes. Because Wal-Mart chooses to pay its workers so little, an estimated $6.2 billion must be collected by U.S. taxpayers to cover public assistance costs in 2015.
We ridicule those of the “lowest common denominator,” making fun of what they wear, criticizing the food they buy for their children, hating them because they receive government assistance. We scrutinize and condemn every decision they make, though their impoverishment is the result of a broken system that they cannot escape.
Meanwhile, corrupt corporations such as Wal-Mart continue to exploit this attitude. The corporation abuses its struggling workers so it may maintain its top position. The Walton family does not consider that its ridiculous amount of wealth could be distributed more fairly to its underpaid employees. The Walton family only seems to care about its status as the “top 1 percent,” and we are allowing it to stay there at the detriment of its 1.4 million American employees.
Rather than persecuting those who suffer under the governance of their employers, we should question the motives of the employers.
