Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price Review

My husband and I watched this film a couple of days ago and it was a real eye-opener. My husband's grandma works at Wal-Mart, so we always kind of new that they don't treat their employees very well, but we didn't know the extent of their unethical practices. We didn't know, for example, that 80% of crimes that happen at Wal-Mart happen in the parking lot and Wal-Mart knows that if they pay someone to patrol the lot they can bring this crime down to 0%. Yet they won't do it because they won't pay out the money. I did not know that the CEO of Wal-Mart makes $120 Million dollars a year (or maybe it was $27 million or something, just remember it was a ridiculous number in comparison) while the average employee makes $13,000 a year. I didn't know that the company makes $240 Billion dollars a year in profit and yet is not willing to spend some of that money to provide its employees with decent healthcare.  I did not know that Wal-Mart actually encourages its employees to apply for government help including welfare, medicare, and federal housing just so "the government can take care of it" so Wal-Mart doesn't have to.  I did not know that factory workers in China who work at the Wal-Mart factories work 7 days a week, 15 hours a day for very little pay. The list goes on and on. Prior to this video, I shopped at Wal-Mart A MINIMUM of once a week. After seeing this, my husband and I are going to make a real effort not to shop there AT ALL. I am disgusted at the unethical practices of this multi-billion dollar company, and there is absolutely NO ONE who holds them accountable for their actions.

I disagree with those who say that this is "negative to the point of unbelievability", as I do know several people who work there that can verify at the very least the treatment of its employees. I also believe that power and money corrupt and I do not doubt that a lot of Wal-Mart's practices are in fact unethical. If even 25% of what the movie says is true, it is enough for me not to shop there anymore. I think that the average American shops at Wal-Mart on a regular basis, and that it is easier to look the other way and say this is "over the top" and "overblown" than to change our habits and shop somewhere else or do anything about it. 

I just found a website after I originally wrote this review that you can go to if you would like more information about Wal-Mart's unethical practices or ways you can fight back. I can't put the website url on viewpoints, but it is called WalMart Watch, so if you search for that you should find it.