I am beyond mad about The Supreme Court’s unanimous decision today to deny class-action status to the women suing Walmart for sex discrimination. The suit — representing 1.6 million women who worked at the company from 1998 — was the largest class-action suit in American history. In their 5-4 decision, led by Justice Antonin Scalia (who doesn’t believe women are protected from discrimination under the 14th Amendment), the court decided that Walmart was basically too big to sue. And that decision will have implications for workers and their fair treatment for years to come.
Here’s the problem: Drinking the Walmart Koolaid (they’re too big to sue; they provide jobs in a down economy; et al) doesn’t erase the harm they do to communities all over America, and the world.
In fact, Walmart is the largest publicly traded corporation in the world by revenue and they are the largest employer in America! Walmart — a company whose wealth is equal part low-cost products and employing people at unlivable, low wages — has never allowed unionizing or other forms of collective bargaining. And that’s their strategy!
Here’s some other things that are part of their strategy to keep not only their profits high but their negative impact on communities high, too:
- (Illegally) locking in their employees.
- They have been named a Merchant of Shame.
- Encouraging its employees to rely so heavily on public assistance programs such as WIC and food stamps — and results in nearly half of the children of Walmart employees being uninsured or on Medicaid.
- It avoids paying more than a BILLION (nationwide) in property taxes, sales taxes, and economic development. Think that doesn’t have an impact? Well, I wonder how much taxes Nevada could get if our state collected sales taxes from corporations with headquarters outside Nevada. (Extra credit: How much money would ALL the corporations, banks, etc. pay the state if they had to pony up their share of taxes?)
- The company makes billions in profits and yet the majority of their associates make wages that put a family of four below the poverty line.
- Speaking of poverty, there’s the whole sweatshop labor thing.
- Need more studies and data? Check out this link.
- Wait, this has the 5 biggest reasons why Walmart is evil.
- Okay, and this site has some good points, too.
- Well, and the wikipedia site dedicated to criticisms of Walmart.
So, I don’t care what The Supreme Court says, Walmart IS evil! And any corporation that makes billions by screwing over its workers, the environment, economically depressing the communities it goes into, willingly employing sweatshops, and otherwise being a terrible corporate citizen doesn’t deserve a CENT of my money. Ever!
What’s that line from Spiderman? “With great power comes great responsibility.” If you are the biggest corporation in the WORLD, you have great responsibility! Your power and your example have an impact!
The Sin City Siren 
Doesn’t matter. Wal-Mart is a corporation, profit is its only motivating factor, and so long as all those people keep shopping there because low prices are primary regardless of how much sacrifice goes into keeping them so low, Wal-Mart will continue to dominate.
Even better? I’ll bet a vast majority of its employees are its customers, too, forced to shop there because that’s all they can afford on their terrible wages. So Wal-Mart actually creates its own customer base.
Question for author of article. Do you shop there? If you do than you have no right to criticize this corporation (I highly doubt you’ve never shopped at Wal-Mart). This post reminds of a debate that I got into with one of my friends who lost his job in the construction boom. He complained about all of the work going oversees and how hard it was to find new work. I asked him to see his tools. Sure enough, all of his tools were made oversees. You and my friend are very similar; Do what I say not what I do. You complain about how evil these companies are and how they are all in it for profits. I hate to break it to you but the only reason why you and I can exchange back and forth like this is because of successes that these greedy corporations realize year after year; capitalism. If it wasn’t for these “greedy” corporations than you wouldn’t be able to blog all your far leaning left ideologies.
Jerry – My household, including myself, do not shop at Walmart. Have we done so in the past? Yes. But what I would say about that is a quote from Maya Angelou, “When you know better, you do better.” When I learned about the problems that workers were having at Walmart — which I found out about first from someone I knew who worked there — I started doing some research and learned more. And once I knew more, I decided to do better with my dollars.
I do not have a problem with the fact that corporations make money. And my issue with Walmart is not that they are evil simply because they make a lot of money. Lots of successful corporations make lots of money! So what? The real question is, what do you do with all the power you hold because you have so much money? Do you create programs to elevate your employees and by proxy help stimulate positive growth in communities? (Last time I checked, we are still in one of the worst recessions in modern history.) Or, do you squeeze every last ounce of will and humanity out of a person and place and then go feast somewhere else — like a virus?
Are you really saying there is no accountability for a corporation, an entity or even the government, simply because it is the biggest? Furthermore, are you really saying that it’s okay for a company to engage in illegal acts (like locking employees in), because it helps their bottom line?
You cannot tell me that there is no such thing as a successful, profitable corporation that cannot at the same time be a good steward of its power and wealth. Examples: REI, Trader Joes, Clif Bars. Need a larger example? Google, which is an enormously powerful and profitable company, does a lot for its employees.
And if you need an example of a enormously profitable company that changed its ways and is STILL very, very successful: Look at Nike. They were called out for sweatshop abuses in the 1990s. They looked at the problem and made changes. And, as I have a friend who works at their headquarters outside Portland, I can attest that they treat their workers tremendously well with multiple on-site daycares, fitness facilities, green park spaces on their work campus, carpooling and lots more. And are you going to tell me that Nike is an unsuccessful, non-profitable company? Not in this lifetime!
So, if you’re going to tell me that the only way that a corporation can be sure to make their profit margins is by treating workers like shit and treating the communities they are in like shit, then you can go peddle that somewhere else. This is not about being left or right, or Republican or Democrat. This is about the vitality and the economic success of ENTIRE communities! If you want there to be less people on welfare, food stamps and other safety net programs, then there is no choice but to be FOR jobs that provide a livable wage. Period.
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