Is Wal-Mart Ethical? Debate [Longer Version with Supporting Arguments] Mesa Community College November 24, 2009 The following comments support the charges made in my public comments for the debate on 11/24/09: WAL-MART ETHICALLY WRONGS ITS EMPLOYEES: ARG1: Wal-Mart executives have failed to pay workers overtime, and admitted to being trained and told by their superiors to do so. One Wal-Mart mgr claimed that he/she has seen every Wal-Mart mgr change the hours other than the General Mgr. The 31 state lawsuit, and $50 MM class action payment in CO convincingly indicate that Wal-Mart violated the law, and in TX it was estimated that WalMart cheated workers out of $150 MM. Another figure cited is that they underpaid 87,000 workers in the US by $34 MM prior to 2007.1 One can easily argue that this practice is not merely illegal, but immoral. The workers are not making that much money and can use any money they are owed for living expenses. If Lee Scott is correct that they pay every worker for every hour, then they should have had the records to prove it, and should not have been found guilty in CO, for instance. It is also not ethical to fail to budget enough money for payroll (especially given that they obviously have the money to do so), as a manager also claimed was the case with Wal-Mart. More evidence is when we hear from a store mgr/trainer that the policy was that if you can squeeze every dime out of them, you can go for it, and not care whether they get sick (which is yet another issue). It is also implied by one worker that they would be heavily pressured to do overtime work (“If you can’t do it, I’ll just get someone else to do it” with a smile), and presumably would not be promoted if they didn’t do the overtime work. This practice is effectively pressuring someone to work for free, and/or assuming they will not be paid for overtime. ARG2: Wal-Mart has multiple (at least 80) lawsuits concerning wage and hour violations. Besides being sued for not paying...