Walmart Case Study

Wal-Mart is an American public corporation that runs a chain of large, discount department stores. It is the world's largest corporation by revenue. Wal-Mart was founded by Sam Walton in 1962. It is the largest private employer in the world and the fourth larges grocery retailer in the United States as well as the largest toy seller in the U.S. Wal-Mart also owns and operates the North American company of Sam's club. Wal-Mart operates in many international countries; Mexico, United Kingdom, Japan, Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Puerto Rico. In Mexico it's known as Walmex, in the UK its known as ASDA, in Japan it's known as Seiyu. In South America and China Wal-Mart is very successful.

A union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and working conditions, forming a cartel of labor. The unions bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiation of wages, work rules, complaint procedures, rules governing hiring, firing and promotion of workers, benefits, workplace safety and policies. The agreements negotiated by the union leaders are binding on the rank and file members and the employer and in some cases on other non-member workers. These unions can benefit the employers of Wal-Mart. It makes sure that the employers don't work more than they are supposed to and makes sure the company doesn't break any work rules.

Wal-Mart has a long history of high-profile labor rights violations. ILRF has learned from trade unions and allied labor NGOs in countries like China, Bangladesh, and Switzerland that they have see major labor rights violations in Wal-Mart Factories. IRLF identified the following labor violations at Wal-Mart; forced labor- workers are forced to work overtime often 16-18 hours a day, minimum wage violations many workers are paid up to thirty percent below their countries legal minimum wage, maternity leave violations most female workers are denied their legal maternity leave and their benefits, overtime pay violations workers are hardly paid overtime, health care violations health clinics that countries require their factories to have do no exist and workers are not provided with basic safety equipment, rights to form independent unions more than 80 percent of Wal-Marts merchandise suppliers are in China, where workers do not have the right of freedom of association, and lastly bathroom breaks violations in many of the factories, workers need a ticket and permission to use the bathroom. Their breaks are times out.

U.S. loses jobs through importing foreign-made goods because the goods are from international. When the U.S. import foreign goods that means that the foreign country has jobs to assemble the goods. So if U.S. is importing foreign goods that mean the people in the U.S. are losing jobs for people who have to assemble goods because they don't need to do that since international countries