Two drivers emerging from their cars to express anger at a road situation in Ontario, Canada
Road rage is aggressive or angry behavior exhibited by people
driving a vehicle. These behaviors include rude and verbal insults,
yelling, physical threats or dangerous driving methods targeted at other
drivers, pedestrians,
or cyclists in an effort to intimidate or release frustration. Road
rage can lead to altercations, damage to property, assaults, and
collisions that result in serious physical injuries or even death. Behaviour has included (but is not limited to) cutting motorists off,
inappropriate honking, flashing headlights, directing obscene gestures
at another driver, swerving, tailgating, brake checking, and physical confrontation.
According to a study by the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety
that examined police records nationally, there were more than 1,250
incidents of road rage on average reported per year between 1990–1996 in
the United States. Many of these incidents have ended with serious
injuries or fatalities. These rates rose each year throughout the six
years of the study. As of 2010, a number of studies have found that individuals with road
rage are predominantly young (33 years old on average) and 96.6% male.
Legal status
In some jurisdictions, there can be a legal difference between "road rage" and "aggressive driving."
In the U.S., only a few states have enacted special aggressive driving
laws, where road rage cases are normally prosecuted as assault and battery (with or without a vehicle), or as vehicular homicide.
The legal definition of road rage encompasses a group of
behaviors expressed while driving, or stemming from traffic-related
incidents. The U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration
defines road rage as when "an intentional assault by a driver or
passenger with a motor vehicle or a weapon that occurs on the roadway or
is precipitated by an incident on the roadway." This definition makes the distinction that aggressive driving is a traffic violation and that road rage is a criminal offense.
Actions such as cutting off another vehicle, driving closely,
blocking another vehicle so that it can not use a traffic lane, brake
checking, chasing another vehicle or running it off the road, or
deliberately slamming into a vehicle.
Stopping a vehicle on the side or in the middle of the road, exiting
the vehicle to threaten, attack, fight, or injure another motorist,
passenger, pedestrian, bicyclist, or any other person.
Shootings
Road rage shootings, being instances of road rage in which a gun
is fired, are typically impulsive events in which participant(s) in a
road rage incident already had a gun in their car or on their person. In
the United States, a person was shot in a road rage incident every 18
hours in 2023 based on data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), which relies on police reports and news coverage.
Effects on drivers
Drivers may become stressed by the actions of other road users
A stressed driver's behavior depends on that driver's coping
abilities. Driving presents many stresses because of high speeds and the
actions of other drivers. As stress increases, the likelihood of a
person exhibiting road rage increases dramatically. Typically, younger males are most susceptible to road rage. Most reported cases of road rage occur because of cutting in and out of
traffic, lane changes, disputes over parking spots or rude gestures. A
report found that 6.8% of selected road rage incidents result in death.
According to one study, people who customize their cars with
stickers and other adornments are more prone to road rage. In the study,
the number of territory markers predicted road rage better than did
vehicle value or condition. Only the number of bumper stickers, not
their content, predicted road rage.
Common targets of road rage are driving instructors and learner drivers;
as these road users tend to follow road regulations very closely, with
learners prone to making more mistakes, they are often antagonized by
aggressive drivers. In 2019, a survey by British insurance provider Young Marmalade
found that 77% of driving instructors face regular abuse and
intimidation from other road users while teaching students, and that 8%
of learner drivers have abandoned learning to drive as a result of road
rage they have experienced.
An electronic road sign in Massachusetts, discouraging road rage
Road rage is a potentially serious act, and it may be seen as an endangerment of public safety. However, it is not always possible to judge intent by observation, so "road ragers" who are stopped by police may be charged with other offenses such as careless or reckless driving, or may be fined or arrested. Some consider road ragers to be criminals.
Australia
In New South Wales, Australia,
road rage is considered an extremely serious act. Any person who
"engages in a course of conduct that causes or threatens an impact
involving the other vehicle" while intending to cause a person bodily
harm can be charged with predatory driving, a serious offense that can
send the culprit to jail for up to five years. Offenders can also be fined A$100,000 and disqualified from driving,
regardless of intent to physically harm the victim. If the predatory
driving results in physical assault or harm, and/or the victim's car is
intentionally damaged, penalties can be much more severe.
Most common-law countries prohibit common assault, which could
apply to road rage in which the personal safety of the victim is seen to
be threatened. The common law regards assault as both a criminal and
civil matter, leading to both public criminal penalties and private
civil liabilities.
Germany
Road
rage, insults, and rude gestures in traffic can lead to fines and
prison sentences for drivers who shout insults or make offensive
gestures while driving.
New Zealand
In New Zealand,
road rage in itself is not an offense, but drivers are usually charged
with other offences committed during an act of road rage (usually assault or unlawful possession of an offensive weapon). Drivers have a legal duty to take reasonable care to avoid endangerment
of human life when operating a vehicle (§ 156 Crimes Act 1961); failure
to discharge this duty, such as an act of aggressive driving, can give
rise to liability in criminal nuisance (§ 146 Crimes Act 1961). Ramming a
vehicle constitutes intentional or reckless damage to property, a
criminal offense, with a maximum penalty of seven years of imprisonment
(§ 269 Crimes Act 1961). New Zealand courts currently have no powers to
disqualify drivers who physically assault another road user.
Singapore
Road
rage is a crime in Singapore. Offenders found guilty of road rage may
be liable to an imprisonment term of up to two years and / or a fine of
up to $5,000 for causing damage.
United Kingdom
In the UK, road rage can result in criminal penalties for assault or more serious offenses against the person. The Public Order Act 1986
can also apply to road rage. Sections 4A and 5 of the 1986 Act prohibit
public acts likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Section 4
also prohibits threatening, abusive or insulting words or behavior with
intent to cause a victim to believe that violence will be used against
himself or another.
United States
In some jurisdictions, such as the Commonwealth of Virginia,
it is easier to prosecute road rage as reckless driving instead of
aggressive driving simply because the burden of proof does not require
intent to successfully convict.
It is likely that those causing serious injury or death during
road-rage incidents will suffer more serious penalties than those
applicable to similar outcomes from simple negligence. In April 2007, a
Colorado driver was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to
two consecutive life terms for causing the deaths of two motorists in
November 2005.
Fourteen U.S. states have passed laws against aggressive driving. Only one state, California, has turned "road rage" into a legal term of art by giving it a particular meaning. In Virginia, aggressive driving is punished as a lesser crime (Class 2
misdemeanor) than is reckless driving (Class 1 misdemeanor).
Rankings
United Kingdom
In the UK, most aggressive driving occurs in the East Riding of Yorkshire, while the least occurs in Durham, according to 2022 surveys.
The American multinational retail chain Walmart has received criticism from parties such as labor unions and small town advocates for its policies and business practices.
Criticisms include charges of racial and gender discrimination, foreign product sourcing, anticompetitive practices, treatment of product suppliers, environmental practices, the use of public subsidies, and its surveillance of its employees. The company has denied any wrongdoing and said that low prices are the result of efficiency.
In 2005, labor unions created new organizations and websites to criticize the company, including Wake Up Walmart (United Food and Commercial Workers) and Walmart Watch (Service Employees International Union). By the end of 2005, Walmart had launched Working Families for Walmart to counter those groups. Efforts to counter criticism include a public relations campaign in this same year, which included several television commercials. The company retained the public relations firm Edelman to interact with the press and respond to negative media reports, and has started working with bloggers by sending them news, suggesting topics for postings, and inviting them to visit Walmart's corporate headquarters. In November 2005, a documentary film critical of Walmart (Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price) was released on DVD.
Critics say that Walmart's lower prices draw customers away from
smaller Main Street businesses, hurting local small town communities,
and that the company hurts the United States economy by relying
excessively on Chinese-produced products – Walmart is the largest
importer in the United States in many categories, such as electronics
and fast-moving consumer goods. The 2006 book The Walmart Effect
by business journalist Charles Fishman contains much of the criticism,
though it also enumerates Walmart's positive impacts within society.
Local communities
Walmart opened its Teotihuacan Superstore near the Pyramid of the Moon amid community protests.
When Walmart plans a new store location, as often as not the company
has to fight its way into town in the municipal equivalent of civil war
between pro- and anti-Walmart factions. Opponents cite concerns such as traffic congestion, environmental problems, public safety, absentee landlordism, bad public relations, low wages and benefits, and predatory pricing. Opposition by activists, competitors, local citizens, labor unions, and religious groups may include protest marches, property damage to store buildings, or by creating bomb scares. Some city councils have denied permits to developers planning to
include a Walmart in their project. Those who defend Walmart cite
consumer choice and overall benefits to the economy, and object to
bringing the issue into the political arena.
In 1998, Walmart proposed construction of a store west of the intersection of Charlotte Pike (U.S. Route 70) and Interstate 40 outside Nashville, Tennessee. The building site was home to both Native American burial grounds and a Civil War
battlefield. Protests were mounted by Native Americans and Civil War
interest groups, but the Walmart store was eventually constructed after
moving graves and some modifications of the site so as not to interfere
with the battlefield. Civil War relics were discovered at the site. The project developers
donated land to permit access to the Civil War historic site. The Native sites were removed and re-buried elsewhere.
A Walmart superstore opened in 2004 in Mexico, 1.9 miles (3.1 kilometres) from the historic Teotihuacan archaeological site and Pyramid of the Moon. Although the location was supported by Mexico's National Anthropology Institute, the United Nations, and the Paris-based International Council on Monuments and Sites, there had been protests organized by local merchants, as well as environmental groups and anti-globalization groups who opposed the construction. Poet Homero Aridjis called the opening as "supremely symbolic" and "like planting the staff of globalization in the heart of ancient Mexico". Archaeologists oversaw construction and discovered a small clay and
stone altar along with some other artifacts where the store's parking
lot is now located.
In 2005, developers demolished the long-closed Dixmont State Hospital in Kilbuck Township,
Pennsylvania, near Pittsburgh, with plans to build a shopping complex
anchored by a Walmart. While there were initially no general objections
to the Walmart store itself, many residents did not want to see Dixmont
demolished, despite the fact that the Dixmont complex, having been
abandoned in 1984, was beyond maintainable condition and teenagers were
dangerously trespassing onto the property on a regular basis. However, while the land was being excavated (after the hospital complex
was torn down) in order to create a plateau for the store to be built
upon, a landslide occurred covering Pennsylvania Route 65 and the Fort Wayne Line railroad tracks between PA 65 and the Ohio River.
Both routes were shut down for weeks. While Walmart did "stabilize" the
landslide, many residents said that Walmart merely stabilized the
hillside so that it could continue with work to build the store. Ultimately, in 2007 Walmart decided against developing the site, allowing the land to return to nature, with a Walmart location to be constructed in nearby Economy, Pennsylvania, instead behind the Northern Lights Shopping Center. After some opposition from the local Giant Eagle location at the plaza, the Walmart location opened in 2014.
In the 2010s, a proposal to build the Midtown Walmart supercenter in Midtown Miami was met with litigation and opposition from local businesses, delaying construction of the project. A Florida Third District Court of Appeal
panel of judges denied the opposition's challenge of the city's
approvals and Walmart broke ground on the development in January 2016.
In 2014, researchers at the University of South Carolina and Sam
Houston State University published a study on whether Walmart affected
local crime rates. In the 1990s, crime rates were in fact decreasing
throughout most of the United States. The study found that this decrease
was "nowhere near" as impressive in most communities that had a Walmart
store, as if the presence of the large retailer was somehow stunting
the decrease. The authors acknowledged the cause-and-effect arrow may go
in the opposite direction. For example, one co-author stated, "Counties
with more social capital – citizens able and willing to speak up about
the best interests of the community – tend to have lower crime rates.
Counties with more crime may have less social capital and, therefore,
less ability to prevent Wal-Mart from building."
Allegations of predatory pricing and supplier issues
Heavily discounted products
Walmart has been accused of selling merchandise at such low costs that competitors have tried to sue for predatory pricing (intentionally selling a product at low cost in order to drive competitors out of the market). In 1995, in the case of Walmart Stores, Inc. v. American Drugs, Inc.,
pharmacy retailer American Drugs accused Walmart of selling items at
too low a cost for the purpose of injuring competitors and destroying
competition. The Supreme Court of Arkansas ruled in favor of Walmart saying that its pricing, including the use of loss leaders, was not predatory pricing. In 2000, the Wisconsin
Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection accused
Walmart of selling butter, milk, laundry detergent, and other staple
goods at low cost, with the intention of forcing competitors out of
business and gaining a monopoly in local markets. The case was settled out of court. Crest Foods filed a similar lawsuit in Oklahoma,
accusing Walmart of predatory pricing on several of its products, in an
effort to drive Crest Foods's own company-owned store in Edmond, Oklahoma, out of business.
In 2003, Mexico's antitrust agency, the Federal Competition Commission,
investigated Walmart for "monopolistic practices" prompted by charges
that the retailer pressured suppliers to sell goods below cost or at
prices significantly less than those available to other stores. Mexican
authorities found no wrongdoing on the part of Walmart. However, in 2003, Germany's High Court ruled that Walmart's low cost
pricing strategy "undermined competition" and ordered Walmart and two
other supermarkets to raise their prices. Walmart won appeal of the
ruling, then the German Supreme Court overturned the appeal. Walmart has since sold its stores in Germany.
Walmart has been accused of using monopoly power to force its suppliers into self-defeating practices. In 2006, Barry C. Lynn, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation (a think tank), said that Walmart's constant demand for lower prices caused Kraft Foods to "shut down thirty-nine plants, to let go [of] 13,500 workers, and to eliminate a quarter of its products." Kraft was unable to compete with other suppliers and said the cost of
production had gone up due to higher energy and raw material costs. Lynn
said that in a free market, Kraft could have passed those costs on to its distributors and ultimately consumers. As another example in 2006, most Walmart store pharmacies filled many
generic prescriptions for $4 for a month's supply. However, in
California and ten other states, complaints from other pharmacies
resulted in Walmart being required to charge at least $9 for a month's
supply of certain drugs.
In May 2010, Walmart's United States stores pulled the Chinese-made Miley Cyrus line of necklaces and bracelets after an Associated Press release that the jewelry contained harmful amounts of the toxic metal cadmium.
Cadmium in jewelry is not known to be dangerous if the items are simply
worn, but concerns come when a child bites or sucks on the jewelry, as
children are apt to do. Walmart said that while the jewelry is not intended for children, "it
is possible that a few younger consumers may seek it out in stores. We
are removing all of the jewelry from sale while we investigate its
compliance with our children's jewelry standard", Walmart said.
Labor relations
Duration: 10 minutes and 5 seconds.10:05Workers speak during Occupy Wall Street.
With over 2.2 million employees worldwide, Walmart has faced a
torrent of lawsuits and issues with regards to its workforce. These
issues involve low wages, poor working conditions, inadequate health care, as well as issues involving the company's strong anti-union policies. In November 2013, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) announced that it had found that in 13U.S.
states Walmart had pressured employees not to engage in strikes on
Black Friday, and had illegally disciplined workers who had engaged in
strikes. Critics point to Walmart's high turnover rate as evidence of an unhappy workforce, although other factors may be involved. Approximately 70percent of its employees leave within the first year. Despite this turnover rate, the company is still able to affect
unemployment rates. This was found in a study by Oklahoma State
University which states, "Walmart is found to have substantially lowered
the relative unemployment rates of blacks in those counties where it is
present, but to have had only a limited impact on relative incomes
after the influences of other socio-economic variables were taken into
account."
Wages
Walmart reports that in 2006 its workers earned an average of $10.11 per hour. Human Rights Watch
estimates that this is below the average of $10.24 earned by workers at
discount department stores, $10.55 at warehouse clubs and supercenters,
and $11.12 at grocery stores. Walmart managers are judged, in part, based on their ability to control payroll costs. The Wall Street Journal says this puts extra pressure on higher-paid workers to be more productive. Walmart insists its wages are generally in line with the current local market in retail labor.
Other critics have noted that in 2001, the average wage for a
Walmart Sales Clerk was $8.23 per hour, or $13,861 a year, while the
federal poverty line for a family of three was $14,630. Walmart founder Sam Walton
once said, "I pay low wages. I can take advantage of that. We're going
to be successful, but the basis is a very low-wage, low-benefit model of
employment."
In August 2006, Walmart announced that it would roll out an
average pay increase of 6% for all new hires at 1,200 United States
Walmart and Sam's Club locations, but at the same time would institute
pay caps on veteran workers. While Walmart maintains that the measures are necessary to stay
competitive, critics believe that the salary caps are primarily an
effort to push higher-paid veteran workers out of the company.
In 2008, Walmart agreed to pay at least $352 million to settle
lawsuits claiming that it forced employees to work off the clock.
"Several lawyers described it as the largest settlement ever for
lawsuits over wage violations."
Because Walmart employs part-time and relatively low paid
workers, some workers may partially qualify for state welfare programs. This has led critics to claim that Walmart increases the burden on taxpayer-funded services. A 2002 survey by the state of Georgia's subsidized healthcare system, PeachCare,
found that Walmart was the largest private employer of parents of
children enrolled in its program; one quarter of the employees of
Georgia Walmarts qualified to enroll their children in the federal
subsidized healthcare system Medicaid. A 2004 study at the University of California, Berkeley
charges that Walmart's low wages and benefits are insufficient, and
although decreasing the burden on the social safety net to some extent,
California taxpayers still pay $86 million a year to Walmart employees.
On September 4, 2008, the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice ruled that Walmart de Mexico, the Mexican subsidiary of Walmart, must cease paying its employees in part with vouchers redeemable only at Walmart stores.
In July 2016, some workers in China went on unofficial strike at Walmart stores in Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, and Harbin, Heilongjiang Province against the company's new working-hours scheduling system.The striking workers protested the system, which allowed managers to
schedule an unlimited number of hours per day totalling up to 174 hours
per month without overtime pay. According to Walmart, workers could either opt into the new schedule or
keep their original shifts, but pointed out that the new scheduling,
which Walmart claim most workers they had contacted supported, allowed
employees to work more shifts if they choose. Chinese Walmart staff accused the country's only officially recognised union, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions
(ACFTU), as being apathetic to their cause and unreceptive to workers'
opinions. The ACFTU had previously signed an agreement with the company
in 2006 that allowed Walmart to set up management-controlled unions
instead. The union asked for the workers to return to their jobs. Reuters reported that by July 8, 2016, the striking workers returned to work when management agreed to consider their protests. Later it was reported that OUR Walmart provided strategic advice to the Walmart Chinese Workers Association (WCWA) prior to the strikes in China.
In January 2018, Walmart announced the increase of the minimum wage for its U.S. employees to $11 per hour.
Working conditions
Walmart has faced accusations involving poor working conditions for its employees. For example, a 2005 class action lawsuit in Missouri
asserted approximately 160,000 to 200,000 people who were forced to
work off-the-clock, were denied overtime pay, or were not allowed to
take rest and lunch breaks. In 2000, Walmart paid $50 million to settle a class-action suit that
asserted that 69,000 current and former Walmart employees in Colorado
had been forced to work off-the-clock. The company has also faced similar lawsuits in other states, including Pennsylvania, Oregon, and Minnesota. Class-action suits were also filed in 1995 on behalf of full-time
Walmart pharmacists whose base salaries and working hours were reduced
as sales declined, resulting in the pharmacists being treated like
hourly employees.
Beginning in 2001, a lawsuit on behalf of 1.5 million women
workers at Walmart was filed against the company, alleging that the
company followed rules and practices that discriminated against women
when it came to pay and promotions. Beginning in 2005, the class-action suit Dukes v. Walmart Stores, Inc. was heard by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Sociologist Dr. William Bielby provided expert opinion on the case, in which he evaluated Walmart's employment policies and corporate culture
"against what social science research shows to be factors that create
and sustain bias and those that minimize bias" and claimed there was
gender bias. In 2011, for the U.S. Supreme Court case Walmart v. Dukes, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia rejected Bielby's testimony, saying it was "worlds away" from proof. The Supreme Court threw out the lawsuit in a 5–4 vote, ruling that the plaintiffs did not meet the rules to proceed as a class.
On October 16, 2006, approximately 200 workers on the morning shift at a Walmart Super Center in Hialeah Gardens, Florida,
walked out in protest against new store policies and rallied outside
the store, shouting "We want justice" and criticizing the company's
recent policies as "inhuman". This marks the first time that Walmart had faced a worker-led revolt of
such scale, according to both employees and the company. Reasons for the revolt included cutting full-time hours, a new
attendance policy, and pay caps that the company imposed in August 2006,
compelling workers to be available to work any shift (day, swing or
night), and that shifts would be assigned by computers at corporate
headquarters and not by local managers. Walmart quickly held talks with
the workers, addressing their concerns. Walmart asserts that its policy permits associates to air grievances without fear of retaliation.
A 2004 report by Democratic United States Representative George Miller alleged that in ten percent of Walmart's stores, nighttime employees were locked inside, holding them prisoner.There has been some concern that Walmart's policy of locking its
nighttime employees in the building has been implicated in a longer
response time to dealing with various employee emergencies, or weather
conditions such as hurricanes in Florida. Walmart said this policy was to protect the workers and the store's
contents in high-crime areas and acknowledges that some employees were
inconvenienced in some instances for up to an hour as they had trouble
locating a manager with the key. However, fire officials confirm that at
no time were fire exits locked or employees blocked from escape.
Walmart has advised all stores to ensure the door keys are available on
site at all times.
In January 2004, The New York Times
reported on an internal Walmart audit, conducted in July 2000, which
examined one week's time-clock records for roughly 25,000 employees. According to the Times,
the audit, "pointed to extensive violations of child-labor laws and
state regulations requiring time for breaks and meals", including 1,371
instances of minors working too late, during school hours, or for too
many hours in a day. There were 60,767 missed breaks and 15,705 lost meal times. Walmart's vice president for communications responded that company auditors had determined that the methodology used by The New York Times was flawed, and the company "did not respond to it in any way internally." Walmart has been accused of allowing undocumented workers
to work in its stores. In one case, federal investigators say Walmart
executives knew that contractors were using undocumented workers as they
had been helping the federal government with an investigation for the
previous three years. Some critics said that Walmart directly hired undocumented workers,
while Walmart says they were employed by contractors who won bids to
work for Walmart.
On October 23, 2003, federal agents raided 61 Walmart stores in
21 United States states in a crackdown known as "Operation Rollback",
resulting in the arrests of 250 nightshift janitors who were
undocumented. Following the arrests, a grand jury convened to consider charging
Walmart executives with labor racketeering crimes for knowingly allowing
undocumented workers to work at their stores. The workers themselves were employed by agencies Walmart contracted with for cleaning services. Walmart blamed the contractors, but federal investigators point to
wiretapped conversations showing that executives knew some workers did
not have the correct documentation. The October 2003 raid was not the first time Walmart was found using
unauthorized workers. Earlier raids in 1998 and 2001 resulted in the
arrests of 100 workers without documentation located at Walmart stores
around the country.
In November 2005, 125 alleged undocumented workers were arrested
while working on construction of a new Walmart distribution center in
eastern Pennsylvania. According to Walmart, the workers were employees of Walmart's construction subcontractor.
Allegations of wrongful termination
On January 13, 2011, four employees at a Walmart in Layton, Utah
were confronted by a shoplifter who pulled out a handgun and took one
of the employees hostage in an attempt to leave a small, closed office.
The other three employees disarmed and subdued the shoplifter, and all
four held onto the man until police arrived. A week later, the four
employees were fired for violating a company policy requiring employees
to "disengage" and "withdraw" from any situation involving a weapon. The four fired employees, together with two other Walmart employees who
had been fired after subduing violent customers, sued Walmart in the
United States federal court in June 2011. After the Utah Supreme Court
ruled (in response to a request from a federal judge) that Utah law
prohibited the firing of workers for defending themselves from injury or
death, Walmart and the workers settled the case on undisclosed terms.
On July 9, 2013, an employee at a Walmart in Kemptville, Ontario,
confronted a customer who had left his dog locked in his truck with the
windows rolled up. She called the police when the customer refused to
solve the problem. She was fired later the same day, reportedly on the
grounds of "being rude to a customer", after rejecting instructions from
her manager that such incidents should be reported to the store
management rather than directly to the police.
The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has long had the goal
of protecting workers, whether unionized or not, who engage in concerted
activity by speaking with each other regarding conditions, wages,
and/or benefits. The NLRB has recently stated that this also applies to
social media. The key point is whether or not the intent appears to be to communicate with fellow employees.And Walmart's official policy is viewed as acceptable and not overly
restrictive in this regard, revised in part after consultations with the
NLRB. However, in practice, Walmart may not always follow such a policy. For example, a September 2013 article in The Atlantic Wire,
reports the case of a 17-year veteran of Walmart's Paramount,
California location who started at $5.50 an hour as an overnight stocker
and became a manager in housewares. "For 14 years I was a model
associate", he states. In 2012, he became increasingly involved with OUR
Walmart and was fired in May 2013. He reports that after he began
speaking about labor conditions "they started silencing me, by holding
me to standards that they weren't holding other associates to. We were
so understaffed, and the workload placed on me [was] unsurmountable."
In 2017 Walmart released a wig to their website that was described with a racial slur
as the wigs shade of brown on the website. This sparked lots of
criticism and controversy on twitter for being racist. Walmart made the
item unavailable shortly after the controversy started.
Health insurance
According to a September 2002 survey by the state of Georgia,
one in four children of Walmart employees were enrolled in PeachCare
for Kids, the state's health-insurance program for uninsured children,
compared to the state's second-biggest employer, Publix, which had one child in the program for every 22 children of employees. A December 2004 nationwide survey commissioned by Walmart showed that
the use of public-assistance health-care programs by children of Walmart
workers was at a similar rate to other retailers' employees, and at
rates similar to the United States population as a whole.
As of October 2005, Walmart's health insurance covered 44% or approximately 572,000 of its 1.3 million United States workers. In comparison, Walmart rival and wholesaler Costco insures approximately 85% of its workers. In 2003 Walmart spent an average of $3,500 per employee for health care, 27% less than the retail-industry average of $4,800. When asked why so many Walmart workers choose to enroll in state health care plans instead of Walmart's own plan, Walmart CEO Lee Scott
acknowledged that some states' benefits may be more generous than
Walmart's own plan: "In some of our states, the public program may
actually be a better value – with relatively high income limits to
qualify, and low premiums." Critics of Walmart say in Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price that employees are paid so little they cannot afford health insurance.
On October 26, 2005, a Walmart internal memo sent to the firm's
board of directors advised trimming over $1 billion in health care
expenses by 2011 through measures such as attracting a younger,
implicitly healthier work force by offering education benefits. The memo also suggested giving sedentary Walmart staffers, such as
cashiers, more physically demanding tasks, such as "cart-gathering", and
eliminating full-time positions in favor of hiring part-time employees
who would be ineligible for the more expensive health insurance and
several policy proposals which may violate the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990. The memo also accused Walmart's lower paid employees of abusing
emergency room visits, "possibly due to their prior experience with
programs such as Medicaid", whereas such visits may actually be due to
the reduced ability of uninsured or underinsured people to make timely
appointments to see a regular physician.
On January 12, 2006, the Maryland legislature enacted a law
requiring that all corporations with more than 10,000 employees in the
state spend at least eight percent of their payroll on employee
benefits, or pay into a state fund for the uninsured. Walmart, with about 17,000 employees in Maryland, was the only known
company to not meet this requirement before the bill passed. On July 7,
2006, the Maryland law was overturned in federal court by a United
States District judge who held that a federal law, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), preempted
the Maryland law. The judge said the law would "hurt Walmart by
imposing the administrative burden of tracking benefits in Maryland
differently than in other states."
On April 17, 2006, Walmart announced it was making a health care
plan available to part-time workers after one year of service, instead
of the prior two-year requirement. By January 2007, the number of workers enrolled in the company's health
care plans increased by 8%, which Walmart attributed to the
introduction of less expensive insurance policies. However, even with this increase, less than half of Walmart's
employees, or 47.4%, received health insurance through the company, with
10%, or 130,000, receiving no coverage at all.
In March 2008, Walmart sued a former Walmart employee, Deborah
Shank, to recover the money it spent for her health care after she was
brain-damaged, restricted to a wheelchair, and nursing home-bound after
her minivan was hit by a truck. Walmart sued the former employee for
$470,000 after she received a settlement from the accident, citing that
company policy forbids employees from receiving coverage if they also
win a settlement in a lawsuit. After a wave of bad publicity, Walmart dropped its suit.
In 2011, Walmart stopped providing health insurance for part-time employees working under 24 hours per week. In 2013, health insurance benefits will not be available to employees
who work fewer than 30 hours per week. Experts in labor and health care
observed that the change will shift the burden of providing health care
for Walmart employees to the federal government, as eligibility for Medicaid has been expanded under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA or ACA). An analysis of Walmart's health plans as compared to plans offered in the ACA's health insurance marketplaces
found that Walmart's plans have larger networks of providers than most
plans in the marketplaces, and that gross premiums (before accounting
for tax credits) are less expensive under Walmart's plans.
In October 2014, Walmart announced that they were cutting
benefits for all associates working under 30 hours a week, which is said
to affect roughly 30,000 (2%) of Walmart's workforce. The company
acknowledged a $500 million jump in health care expenses as the primary
reason for their decision. Walmart executive Sally Welborn stated in a
blog post, "This year, the expenses were significant and led us to make
some tough decisions as we begin our annual enrollment."
Labor union opposition
Walmart
has been criticized for its policies against labor unions. Critics
blame workers' reluctance to join the labor union on Walmart anti-union
tactics such as managerial surveillance and pre-emptive closures of
stores or departments who choose to unionize. Walmart claims that it is not anti-union but "pro-associate", arguing
that its employees do not need to pay third parties to discuss problems
with management as the company's open-door policy enables employees to
lodge complaints and submit suggestions all the way up the corporate
ladder. In 1970, Walmart's late founder Sam Walton resisted a unionization push by the Retail Clerks International Union in two small Missouri towns by hiring a professional union buster to conduct an anti-union campaign. On the union buster's advice, Walton also took steps to show his
workers how the company had their best interests in mind, encouraging
them to air concerns with managers and implementing a profit-sharing
program. A few years later, Walmart hired a consulting firm, Alpha Associates, to develop a union avoidance program.
In 2000, meat cutters in Jacksonville, Texas,
voted to unionize. Walmart subsequently eliminated in-house
meat-cutting jobs in favor of prepackaged meats, claiming that the
measure would cut costs and prevent lawsuits. Walmart said that the nationwide closing of in-store meat packaging had
been planned for many years and was not related to the unionization. In June 2003, a National Labor Relations Board
judge ordered Walmart to restore the meat department to its prior
structure, complete with meat-cutting, and to recognize and bargain with
the union over the effects of any change to case-ready meat sales.
Walmart's anti-union policies also extend beyond the United States. The documentary Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price, shows one successful unionization of a Walmart store in Jonquière,
Quebec, Canada, in 2004, but Walmart closed the store five months later
because the company did not approve of the new "business plan" a union
would require. In September 2005, the Québec Labor Board ruled that the closing of a
Walmart store amounted to a reprisal against unionized workers and has
ordered additional hearings on possible compensation for the employees,
though it offered no details.
In March 2005, Walmart executive Tom Coughlin was forced to resign from its board of directors, facing charges of embezzlement. Coughlin said that the money was used for an anti-union project involving cash bribes paid to employees of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in exchange for a list of names of Walmart employees that had signed union cards. He also said that the money was unofficially paid to him, by Walmart, as compensation for his anti-union efforts. In August 2006, Coughlin pleaded guilty to stealing money, merchandise,
and gift cards from Walmart, but avoided prison time due to his poor
health. He was sentenced to five years probation and required to pay a
$50,000 fine and $411,000 in restitution to Walmart and the Internal
Revenue Service. A United States attorney has stated that no evidence
was found to back up Coughlin's initial claims, and Walmart continues to
deny the existence of the anti-union program, though Coughlin himself
apparently restated those claims to reporters after his conviction.
Walmart has also had some run-ins with the German Ver.di labor union as well. These issues, combined with cultural differences and low performing
stores, led Walmart to pull out of the German market entirely in 2006.
In August 2006, Walmart announced that it would allow workers at
all of its Chinese stores to become members of trade unions, and that
the company would work with the state-sanctioned All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) on representation for its 28,000 staff. However, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions has been criticized because it is the only trade union in China and as a tool of the government, ACFTU has been seen as not acting in the best interest of its members (workers), bowing to
government pressure on industry growth and not defending workers'
rights.
In November 2012, the United Food & Commercial Workers joined with several Walmart workers with a plan to go on strike on Black Friday at several stores nationwide in protest to low pay, an increase in health insurance premiums, and not being given the option to have the day off or having Thanksgiving off. Walmart has countered this by saying that the strike is illegal due to
the union not being sanctioned by the company, and that the striking
workers are a small minority of the company's workforce, with the vast
majority of workers willing and ready to work the retail industry's
busiest day of the year.
In May 2013, Walmart employees associated with a union-backed labor group called OUR Walmart began what it says will be the first "prolonged strikes" in Walmart's history.
For Thanksgiving 2013, CNN estimates that approximately a million
United States Walmart employees would work over the course of the
holiday, with big specials starting at 6:00 pm on Thanksgiving Day. The
company stated that employees would receive "a nice Thanksgiving dinner
at work", extra "holiday pay", and 25% discount off one purchase,
regardless of how many items are purchased at that time. According to the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
the extra holiday pay equaled the average daily shift the employee
worked during the previous two weeks. Walmart would also expand its
one-hour guarantee from three items the year before to twenty-one items.
This means that a customer standing in line for such an item from 6–7
pm or from 8–9 pm would be guaranteed to get it at that price some point
before Christmas.
In July 2019, the Walmart subreddit
was flooded with pro-union memes in a protest to the firing of an
employee who posted confidential material to the subreddit. Many of
these posts were angry with Walmart surveying its staff on the Internet.
The posting of the union content is in a response to the aforementioned
alleged anti-union position Walmart has taken in the past.
Surveillance patent
In July 2018, Walmart was granted a patent titled "Listening to the Frontend" for audio surveillance technology that could allow it to record employees as well as its shoppers. The company says the technology could help it boost worker productivity
by generating performance metrics for each employee based on cashier
area sounds, such as checkout scanner beeps, and even conversations. It would not say whether it plans to actually implement the multi-sensor system.
Gender and sexual orientation
In 2007, a gender discrimination lawsuit, Dukes v. Walmart Stores, Inc.,
was filed against Walmart, alleging that female employees were
discriminated against in matters regarding pay and promotions. A class action suit was sought, which would have been the nation's largest in history, covering 1.5 million past and current employees. On June 20, 2011, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Walmart's favor, stating that the plaintiffs did not have enough in common to constitute a class. The court ruled unanimously that because of the variability of the
plaintiffs' circumstances, the class action could not proceed as
presented, and furthermore, in a 5–4 decision that it could not proceed
as any kind of class action suit. Several plaintiffs, including the lead plaintiff, Betty Dukes,
expressed their intent to file individual discrimination lawsuits
separately.
According to a consultant hired by plaintiffs in a sex
discrimination lawsuit, in 2001, Walmart's EEOC filings showed that
female employees made up 65 percent of Walmart's hourly paid workforce,
but only 33percent of its management.Just 35 percent of its store managers were women, compared to 57 percent at similar retailers. Walmart says comparisons with other retailers are unfair, because it
classifies employees differently; if department managers were included
in the totals, women would make up 60 percent of the managerial ranks. Others have criticized the lawsuit as without basis in the law and as an abuse of the class action mechanism. In 2007, Walmart was named by the National Association for Female
Executives as one of the top 35 companies for Executive Women.
Walmart's rating on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index, a measure of how companies treat LGBT employees and customers, has increased greatly during the past decade. The company was praised for expanding its anti-discrimination policy protecting gay and lesbian employees, as well as for a new definition of "family" that included same-sex partners.However, they have been criticized by the HRC in other areas, such as
not renewing its membership in the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of
Commerce.
In January 2006, Walmart announced that "diversity efforts
include new groups of minority, female and gay employees that meet at
Walmart headquarters in Bentonville to advise the company on marketing
and internal promotion. There are seven Business Resource Groups: women,
African-Americans, Hispanics, Asians, Native Americans, Gays and
Lesbians, and a disabled group."
Poorly run and understaffed stores
In
2015, the Walmart CEO acknowledged a need for Walmart to refocus on
cleanliness and tidiness, restocking shelves quickly, integration with
digital, sideline businesses such as gas stations and care clinics,
better selection such as in fresh produce, and correcting the situation
in which Walmart prices were not always as low as those of competitors.
In a January 2012 article in the Harvard Business Review,
Professor Zeynep Ton stated, "Moreover, the financial benefits of
cutting employees are direct, immediate, and easy to measure, whereas
the less-desirable effects are indirect, long term, and difficult to
measure." A lot of retailers, including Walmart, evaluate managers by a
ratio of sales to payroll expense. Managers do not have direct control
over sales, almost never making decisions on merchandise mix, layout, or
pricing. However, they very much have direct control over payroll and
when sales numbers drop, such managers are quick to reduce payroll. That
is, labor ends up being treated as a cost driver rather than a sales
driver. At times, these pressures have even been such that Walmart
managers placed pressure on employees to "work off the clock," a form of
wage theft.
As counter examples of companies which are both price leaders and
invest in their employees, Prof. Ton points to QuikTrip convenience
stores, Mercadona and Trader Joe's supermarkets, and Costco wholesale
clubs.
In February 2013, Walmart received an American Customer
Satisfaction Index rating of 71 as compared to 81 for Target, placing
Walmart last for the year among retail and department stores. According to Bloomberg News, this marks the sixth year in a row Walmart has either finished last or tied for last.
According to a March 2013 Bloomberg News article, during
the last five years Walmart added 455 United States stores for a 13%
increase. During this same period, its overall United States employees
including Sam's Clubs employees went down ever so slightly at 1.4% which
translates to a reduction of 20,000 employees. In Wisconsin, an
employee who oversees grocery deliveries and who is a member of OUR
Walmart reports that the store is a long way from the previous mantra of
"in the door and to the floor." Instead, merchandise ready for the
sales floor remains on pallets and in steel bins in the back of the
store with "no passable aisles." Professor Zeynep Ton states that
companies can get in a downward spiral where too few labor hours lead to
operational problems and lower sales and these reduced sales then
become a rationale to reduce labor hours even further. "It requires a
wake-up call at a higher level," she said. A customer from Delaware
states that the cosmetics section "looked like someone raided it" and
"You hate to see a company self-destruct, but there are other places to
go." A customer in California states, "You wait 20, 25 minutes for
someone to help you, then the person was not trained on mixing paint. It
was like, you have to help them help you."
An April 3, 2013 The New York Times article cites Supermarket News
that Walmart's grocery prices are usually about 15 percent cheaper than
competitors. At the start of 2007, the company had an average of 338
employees for each Walmart and Sam's Club store in the United States,
and by April 2013, this had reduced to an average of 281 employees per
store. Terrie Ellerbee, associate editor of grocery publication The Shelby Report,
traced the problem to 2010 when Walmart reduced the number of different
merchandise items carried in an attempt to make stores less cluttered.
Customers did not like this change, and Walmart added the merchandise
back, but did not add employees back.
An April 5, 2013, article in the Consumerist
includes photographs of Walmart shelves which are only partially
stocked, primarily in health and beauty products. One employee is quoted
as saying, "As soon as we get a full crew we start to lose people
through them quitting or being fired. Management seems to wait until we
need 6 or 7 people, then we get a rash of new hires." And another
employee is quoted as saying, "they make the rest of us work faster and
harder, saying the task manager system, which is basically a
[point-of-sale] system telling them how long it should take us to do our
job, says we should be done already or we're taking too long."
An April 9, 2013 article in Time Business & Money
reported that some Walmart stores have cut labor hours so much that they
were having trouble physically moving merchandise from the back onto
stores shelves. However, even with these problems, Walmart was
performing better than Target in the measure of retail turnover, turning
over its entire inventory 8 times a year as compared to 6.4 for Target.
Walmart states it has 90% to 95% in-stock, but given inventory levels
in United States stores, even this means the company could be foregoing
$1.29 billion to $2.58 billion in potential sales. The article's author
writes that no amount of "computer wizardry" will eliminate the need for
human beings to also move merchandise onto shelves. The author further
writes that Walmart's whole business model is based on reducing the
carrying costs of unsold merchandise, and any speed bump along the line
adds back costs. Front-end managers are supposed to open another
register any time there are more than three customers in line, but these
employees have to come from some other part of the store, and the night
crew may or may not be able to catch up.
In September 2013, Bloomberg Businessweek reported that
Walmart will be offering 35,000 part-time employees full-time jobs and
will be offering another 35,000 temporary employees permanent part-time
positions. Walmart will also be looking to hire 55,000 seasonal
employees for the upcoming holiday season. This compares to 120,000 jobs
Walmart has cut over the last five years. This number does conflict with the 20,000 jobs cut from the above Bloomberg News of March 2013.
For Thanksgiving 2013 specials, Walmart included twenty-one items
which included a one-hour guarantee, where customers would pay at that
time and then go online to arrange delivery to a store of their choice
by Christmas. However, there were problems and delays for some customers when they
went online to register their access codes and paid gift certificates.
In February 2014, a local NBC affiliate in Troy, Alabama, United
States, showed photographs of empty shelves and aired customer
complaints, with one customer stating, "And merchandise? When you don't
have any salt on the shelf, no matter what brand, that's pretty bad."
Regarding the cleanliness and repair of restrooms, another customer
stated, "The bathrooms? They have things that are broken in there and
instead of fixing the problem, they have a trash bag taped over it, and
it smells horrible." The reporter who was taking photographs was
approached by three persons who identified themselves as managers and
escorted out of the store. Within 24 hours, perhaps motivated by the fact that the story did
appear on TV, Walmart's corporate office sent additional employees from
neighboring stores to this store.
No AEDs in stores (automated external defibrillators)
Many Walmart stores have no AEDs, which has led to criticism from those who have needed them whilst in their premises.
In 2011, the Walmart store in Kirksville, Missouri,
had an opportunity to participate in a local program which placed 26
AEDs in various schools, churches, and businesses. The local store
management was initially open to participation. However, Walmart
corporate declined to participate.
In 2015 in Saskatoon, Canada,
a 62-year-old man had a heart attack in a parking lot of a Walmart
store. Two off-duty nurses who knew CPR offered assistance, whilst a
third person ran to a different store to get that store's AED machine,
and the man survived. The man's family criticized Walmart for not having
an AED machine. The director of corporate affairs for Walmart Canada
said the store has an employee on shift who is trained in first aid and
CPR as is required by Canadian law, and that the company is in the
process deciding whether or not to place AEDs in stores.
In 2018 in Alberta, Canada,
a woman shopping with her adult daughters had a heart attack at a
Walmart store. The 911 operator instructed one daughter to find an AED
machine. The employee at the Walmart customer service desk did not know
whether or not the store had one. Alberta law does not require AEDs in
businesses, and Walmart stores in Alberta do not have them. The woman
was not able to be resuscitated and died.
Imports and globalization
As
a large customer to most of its vendors, Walmart openly uses its
bargaining power to bring lower prices to attract its customers. The
company negotiates lower prices from vendors. For certain basic
products, Walmart "has a clear policy" that prices go down from year to
year. If a vendor does not keep prices competitive with other suppliers, they
risk having their brand removed from Walmart's shelves in favor of a
lower-priced competitor.
While Sam Walton was alive, Walmart had a "Buy American"
campaign, but it was exposed shortly after he died that signs saying
"Buy American" were on bins of Asian made products. Yet by 2005, about
60% of Walmart's merchandise was imported, compared to 6% in 1984,
although others estimated the percentage was 40% from the beginning. In 2004, Walmart spent $18 billion on Chinese products alone, and if it
were an individual economy, the company would rank as China's eighth
largest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada. One group estimates that the growing United States trade deficit with
China, heavily influenced by Walmart imports, is estimated to have moved
over 1.5 million jobs that might otherwise be in the United States to
China between 1989 and 2003. According to the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
(AFL–CIO), "Walmart is the single largest importer of foreign-produced
goods in the United States", their biggest trading partner is China, and
their trade with China alone constitutes approximately 10% of the total
United States trade deficit with China as of 2004.
Overseas labor concerns
Walmart
has been criticized for not providing adequate supervision of its
foreign suppliers. It has also been criticized for using sweatshops and prison labor. In 1995, Chinese dissident Harry Wu charged that Walmart was contracting prison labor in Guangdong Province. Walmart said it did not use prison labor. There have also been reports of teenagers in Bangladesh working in sweatshops 80 hours per week at $0.14 per hour, for Walmart supplier Beximco. The documentary film Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price
shows images of Walmart goods-producing factories in poor condition,
and factory workers subject to abuse and conditions that the documentary
producers considered inhumane.
Walmart currently uses monitoring which critics say is inadequate
and "leaves outsiders unable to verify" conditions. Since Walmart will
not release its audits or factory names, outside organizations are
expected to simply accept Walmart's claims as fact. Critics suggest an agency such as Social Accountability International or the Fair Labor Association
should do the monitoring. In 2004, Walmart began working with Business
for Social Responsibility, a San Francisco, California-based nonprofit
organization, to reach out to groups active in monitoring overseas
plants.
In June 2006, Walmart was excluded from the investment portfolio of The Government Pension Fund of Norway, which held stock values of about $430 million in the company, due to a social audit into alleged labor rights violations in Walmart operations in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Although Walmart did not respond to questions from the fund's auditors,
it later said the decision "[does not] appear to be based on complete
information".
On November 24, 2012, a fire in a Bangladesh clothing factory
resulted in the death of 112 workers. Survivors said that fire
extinguishers did not work, an exit door was locked, and that when the
fire alarm went off, bosses told workers to return to their sewing
machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the
eight-story building, which had no fire escapes or exits. Initially
Walmart said it could not confirm that it had ever sourced apparel from
the factory. However photos taken by Bangladeshi labor activists showed
Walmart-branded clothing present in the factory after the fire. Walmart
later said that a supplier had subcontracted work to the factory "in
direct violation of our policies." However, on December 4, documents
revealed that at least five supplier companies had been using the
Bangladesh factory to provide apparel for Walmart and its subsidiary Sam's Club during the past year. It was also disclosed in a November 24 article in The New York Times
that officials who had attended a 2011 Bangladesh meeting to discuss
factory safety in the garment industry said that the Walmart official
there had played the lead role in blocking an effort to have global
retailers pay more for apparel to help Bangladesh factories improve
their electrical and fire safety.
Allegations of bribery and coverup in Mexico
In 2012, The New York Times reported that Walmart had been made aware eight years earlier that executives of Walmart México,
its subsidiary in that country, had paid millions of dollars in bribes
to local officials to expedite permits for construction and operation of
its many stores in that country. The company had opened many stores in
Mexico in the late 1990s and early 2000s, attempting to widely establish
itself before competitors could. Sergio Cicero, a lawyer who had been
responsible for obtaining those permits and was bitter about being
passed over for the position of general counsel with Walmart México
provided the company's corporate general counsel's office with evidence
showing that the company had made large payments to gestores,
workers who deal with bureaucracies on behalf of citizens and
businesses, with coded indications that the money was being passed on to
officials to expedite permits.
Company officials hired a veteran FBI agent to conduct a
preliminary inquiry, instead of hiring an outside law firm as it usually
did for major inquiries, such as a similar one in 2003 which found that
Walmart México had been helping high-volume customers evade that
country's sales taxes.
The special investigative team found evidence corroborating almost all
of Cicero's allegations, and evidence suggesting that the bribery had
been even more extensive, including $16 million in "donations" to local
politicians and their organizations. They recommended opening a full
investigation, and possibly notifying the Justice Department, as it appeared that both Mexican law and the United States Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) had been violated.
Executives at Walmart México chafed at the investigation,
reportedly complaining that that was how business was done in the
country. They told their counterparts at corporate headquarters that the
investigators were being too aggressive, and some of the company's top
executives apparently agreed. Feeling Walmart had had enough bad
publicity in recent years, they allowed the investigation to be
concluded by a short report from José Luis Rodríguezmacedo, the head of
Walmart México, who had himself been suspected of involvement. It
largely blamed Cicero, claiming he had fabricated the allegations to
conceal his own embezzlement from the company with the help of the gestores,
one of whom was his wife's law partner. Some Walmart executives found
the report incomplete and contradictory, but the investigation was
closed. None of the Mexican executives investigated were ever
disciplined, and some were even promoted afterwards.
In December 2011, several months before the story broke, Walmart
announced it had begun an internal review of its FCPA compliance
procedures. It was unclear how the Justice Department might respond.
While the FCPA's five-year statute of limitations appeared to bar prosecution under that statute, falsified financial statements in the years since could be seen as obstruction of justice under the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and acts taken to conceal the bribery investigation subsequent to 2007 could constitute conspiracy.
Product selection
Walmart's
product selection has been criticized by some groups in the past,
primarily as viewed as a promotion of a particular ideology or as a
response to its original rural, religious and conservative target
market. In 2003, Walmart removed certain men's magazines from its shelves, such as Maxim, FHM, and Stuff, citing customer complaints regarding their sexual content. Later that year, it decided to partly obscure the covers of Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, and Redbook on store shelves due to "customer concerns", and refused to stock an issue of Sports Illustrated's swimsuit special because it objected to one photograph.
Since 1991, Walmart has not carried music albums marked with the Recording Industry Association of America's (RIAA's) Parental Advisory
Label (although it allows R-rated movies and video games rated
"Mature"), although it carries edited versions of such albums, with
obscenities removed or overdubbed with less offensive lyrics. In one example in 2005, Walmart rejected the original cover of country singer Willie Nelson's reggae album, Countryman, which featured marijuana leaves, in a pro-marijuana statement. To satisfy Walmart, the record label, Lost Highway Records, issued the album with an alternative cover, without recalling the original cover. In 2009 Green Day refused to make an edited version of their album 21st Century Breakdown for Walmart, with frontman Billie Joe Armstrong claiming "You feel like you're in 1953 or something", thus the album is not carried by Walmart. However albums carrying the label can be found in Canadian Walmart stores, for example.
In 1999, Walmart announced that it would not stock emergency contraception pills in its pharmacies, not citing any particular reasons except for a "business decision" that was made earlier. The move was criticized by family planning advocates, saying that women
in small towns where Walmart pharmacies had little competition would
have greater difficulties in obtaining the drug. The decision was challenged in 2006, as three Massachusetts women filed suit against the company after they were unable to purchase emergency contraception at their local Walmart stores, resulting in a ruling that required Walmart to stock the drug in all of its pharmacies in Massachusetts. Expecting that other states would soon do the same, Walmart reversed
its policy and announced that it would begin to stock the drug
nationwide, while at the same time maintaining its conscientious objection
policy, allowing any Walmart pharmacy employee who does not feel
comfortable dispensing a prescription to refer customers to another
pharmacy.
Walmart has also been criticized for selling some controversial products. For example, in 2004 Walmart carried the anti-Semitic hoax The Protocols of the Elders of Zion in its online catalogue. The Jewish civil rights organization Anti-Defamation League
wrote to the President of Walmart in September 2008 noting the text,
"has been the major weapon in the arsenals of anti-Semites around the
world", and called on Walmart to, "unequivocally state the nature of the
book and to disassociate itself from any endorsement of it." Walmart stopped selling the book shortly thereafter.
In October 2004, Walmart canceled its order for The Daily Show'sAmerica (The Book) after discovering a page that depicts each US Supreme Court judge nude. A week later, it returned copies of comedian George Carlin's When Will Jesus Bring the Pork Chops?, with a cover recreating The Last Supper
with Jesus' seat empty and Carlin seated next to it. The company said
that the copies were shipped to it by mistake and a Walmart spokeswoman
said she did not "believe this particular product would appeal" to its
customer base.
In January 2006, Walmart was criticized for the recommendation system on its website which suggested that some black-related DVDs, such as Introducing Dorothy Dandridge and documentaries on Baptist minister and civil rights movement leader Martin Luther King Jr. were similar to the Planet of the Apes
television series DVD box set. It quickly corrected the page, saying
that it was a software glitch, but ultimately blamed the matter on human
error.
A December 2007 report published by the Environmental Investigation Agency,
a non-governmental agency, revealed that some furniture sold at Walmart
was made from wood which had been illegally logged in protected Russian
habitats for Siberian tigers and other wildlife. This led the company to investigate its suppliers and promise to
eliminate products made from illegal wood by 2013. They also joined the
Global Forest & Trade Network, an organization dedicated to
eliminating illegal logging.
In 2015, Walmart stopped selling military-style semi-automatic
rifles like the AR-15. In 2018 it stopped selling firearms and
ammunition to 18-20 year olds, which led to a lawsuit.
In 2017, Walmart was sued for selling fake craft beer.
The beer is labeled and marketed as being produced by the non-existent
"Trouble Brewery" but is actually made by WX Brands, a large corporate
brewery that also makes Genesee beer.
At the end of 2017, Walmart removed T-shirts which implied a
promotion of violence, with the words "Rope. Tree. Journalist. Some
Assembly Required". Executive Director Dan Shelley of the Radio Television Digital News Association said that while RTDNA is "a fierce proponent of the First Amendment
that is politically nonpartisan" and that Walmart is within its legal
rights to sell the T-shirt, "that doesn't mean it is the right thing to
do." A Walmart spokesperson said the shirt "clearly violates our
policy."
In May 2019, Walmart was sued by the Center For Inquiry (CFI) for selling homeopathic products on the shelf next to traditional medicine. The CFI, a not-for-profit
educational organization, stated in the complaint that Walmart "uses
marketing, labeling, and product placement to falsely present
homeopathic products as equivalent alternatives to science-based
medicines, and to represent homeopathic products as effective treatments
for specific diseases and symptoms." Nicholas Little of CFI said that homeopathic products should remain
legal to purchase, but should be labelled products honestly. The FDA
currently does not regulate homeopathic products, but in recent years
has signaled their intent to regulate the industry to a higher level. This follows on from a similar lawsuit filed by CFI against pharmacy chain CVS in 2018. Walmart responded by stating "Our Equate private label homeopathic
products are designed to include information directly stating that the
claims are not based on accepted medical evidence and have not been
evaluated by the FDA. We take allegations like these seriously and will
respond as appropriate with the court." In an August 2019 interview, Little commented that "The problem is the government agencies (the FDA and FTC) aren't doing their job. ... The FDA and FTC have rules and guidelines, but they don't enforce them." In July, 2019, CFI announced that the Stiefel Freethought Foundation
was contributing an additional $150,000 to the previously committed
$100,000 to support the two lawsuits.
Taxes
Until the mid-1990s, Walmart took out corporate-owned life insurance
policies on its employees including "low-level" employees such as
janitors, cashiers, and stockers. This type of insurance is usually
purchased to cover a company against financial loss when a high-ranking
employee (i.e. management) dies, and is usually known as "key person insurance".
Critics derided Walmart as buying what they called "dead peasants
insurance" or "janitor insurance". Critics, as well as the United States
Internal Revenue Service,
charge that the company was trying to profit from the deaths of its
employees, and take advantage of the tax law which allowed it to deduct
the premiums. The practice was stopped in the mid-1990s when the federal
government closed the tax deduction and began to pursue Walmart for
back taxes.
Animal welfare
Walmart committed in 2016 to only sourcing cage-free eggs by 2025. The "cage-free" label is inconsistent in the U.S. and is not the same as "free-range".
On November 28, 2016, Paola Gaviño in coordination with the animal protection NGOs, The Humane League and Mercy For Animals,
launched a multinational campaign to raise awareness of Walmart's
failure to produce a policy to source 100% cage-free eggs throughout
Latin America. Walmart has not committed to phasing out battery cages in Latin America as it has in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. The campaign argues that battery cages are unnecessarily cruel and also
increase the risk of food safety issues, including an increased risk of
Salmonella contamination.
Midtown Walmart
Midtown Walmart was a proposal by Walmart to build a 203,000-square-foot (18,900 m2) supercenter location on a 4.6-acre (1.9-hectare) site in the planned sub-district of Midtown Miami in the city of Miami, Florida, US.
Walmart's Midtown plan was rejected the first time in February 2013, but was redesigned by Gensler and approved by Miami Planning and Zoning Director Francisco Garcia in
August 2013, then upheld on appeal by the City Commission in November
2013, Midtown Walmart faced public and political opposition from area residents, business owners, and community activists after being adapted to meet strict zoning regulations that resulted in
the design differing from the typical layout, such as utilizing second
story roof parking versus a surface lot with more street liner retail spaces instead of a wall perimeter.
The original 2013 plan included 550 parking spaces on two levels above the 184,000-square-foot (17,100 m2) store.
Walmart did build urban locations in Santurce, (downtown) San Juan, Puerto Rico, known as "Plaza 18", as well as Washington, D.C., where the city's first Walmart is a true mixed-use development, with third party retail as well as 300 apartments above the store. Walmart's plan in Midtown Miami was not an urban store, but rather a
suburban-style Super Center with parking in two floors above the ground
level, instead of in an open lot. If built, it would be the first
traditional Walmart location within the City of Miami limits, although
there are numerous locations just outside city limits in Doral, Hialeah, Gladeview, North Miami Beach, and Westchester, as well as a "Neighborhood Market" in the western fringes of the city.
Purchased in October 2011, the retailer closed on the sale in January 2014 for US$8.2 million, the currently vacant site sits at the southern tip of Midtown between North Miami Avenue and Midtown Boulevard from Northeast 29th and 31st Streets, between the burgeoning neighborhoods of Wynwood and Edgewater.
A Walmart Neighborhood Market in western fringes of the city
After two years of litigation, Walmart won their first court battle in August 2015. The litigation once again targeted the city's departure from the law by providing Walmart illegal zoning variances and the illegal street re-configuration caused by the development which would contribute excessively to local traffic problems.
The Midtown development contains a Target and a Ross.
The Walmart broke ground with an illegal permit from the City of Miami in January 2016, after a panel of state judges in the 3rd District Court of Appeals blocked a petition challenging the development.
In 2016, Stern won a judgment against the City of Miami in a public records lawsuit related to
Walmart's plan to build in Midtown Miami. That case proved Stern's
claims that Walmart did not hold good title to all the land upon which
they obtained a permit to build from the city. As a result, the City of
Miami froze their permit and eventually, construction of the Walmart was
involuntarily halted when the City revoked their foundation permit on June 21, 2016, and construction ceased at the site within the week, which is how Walmart's vacant Midtown site remains.
In September 2019, Walmart sold its land for $26.4 million.
On December 22, 2020, the United States Department of Justice filed an official complaint towards Walmart pharmacies for failing to comply with the Controlled Substances Act, by selling opioids and other restricted substances to its customers.
Under the presiding of former attorney general William Barr, the Walmart corporate and the United States Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Administration went to court in attempt to resolve the issue. Other pharmacies were also pulled into this legal case for similarly defying the Controlled Substances Act. Many large pharmaceutical companies, such as Walgreens, Sam's Club & CVS Pharmacy were included in this case.
Within the lawsuit, the United States Department of Justice
argued that Walmart pressured pharmacists to refill as many
prescriptions as fast as possible. They also argued that the all
pharmacies in the United States have to comply with federal law before
refilling a prescription. Walmart counter-argued that every individual
pharmacist must make the decision to refill a prescription or not.
After deliberations, the jury sided with the United States
Department of Justice. All the companies involved were forced to pay a
total of 3.1 billion dollars in restitution and damages, and were banned
from dispensing opioids to consumers.
Walmart has had further trouble with the Drug Enforcement Agency
as well. In November 2009, Walmart pharmacies faced a DEA investigation
over Walmart's CSA compliance. In November 2011, Walmart entered an
agreement with the DEA requiring certain changes and controls to ensure
compliance with CSA. It was alleged that the company's board was not
monitoring the DEA settlement and that the company "emphasized profits
over compliance", and that there were many red flags regarding non-compliance. Several
lawsuits followed. In 2017, Walmart was a defendant in a Opioid
multidistrict litigation.
In 2021 and 2022, further lawsuits by shareholders alleged that
Walmart had breached their duties of ensuring compliance with the CSA
and DEA settlement. Walmart's motion to dismiss the settlement was
denied.
On December 20, 2024, in the case Ontario Provincial Council of Carpenters’ Pension Trust Fund, et al. v. S. Robson Walton, et al. over the historical failure of Walmart to implement legally mandated controls, the Delaware Court of Chancery
approved a settlement that included 123 million dollars and Walmart's
guarantee to maintain practices for at least 5 years. The settlement is
the second largest settlement in a derivative oversight case in Delaware
history.
These lawsuits are some of the largest measures taken by the federal government against a company over the opioid crisis.
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