I Hate Walmart
We are no longer going to buy anything else from Walmart or Sam's Club! If you work there, I urge you to go to find another employer, if possible, because you are under-payed, they do not offer you fair benefits, and you are under appreciated by both management and customers. I've never approved of most of their business practices, but two of the policies that they've just implemented within the last few months finally convinced us not to give them any more of our money: their anti-firearms policy & the new metal security gates (that they installed in some store in order to reduce shoplifting) that closed on me and bruised my leg when I was attempting to leave the store without walking between the registers because I did not buy anything so I was just attempting to walk through the way that I came in.
I grew up just a few towns away from Bentonville, Arkansas where the empire all began. Sam Walton was a great guy who had compassion for all people, wanted to offer products that cost less to consumers, and was so business savvy that his family is currently one of the most wealthy in the world (billionaires)! The man could be seen helping people change tires on the side of the road while from his old beat-up pickup truck while wearing overalls. Things started going downhill as soon as his greedy & corrupt children started taking over the corporation. The Walton family is worth about 152 Billion dollars and is one of the richest family in the world; yet, most of their employees are paid so low that they qualify food stamp benefits!
The first time I heard about problems is when my dad was mad when Walmart promised to pay a mom-and-pop board game manufacturer one price if they produced a large number of products for them. Then Walmart ended up only paying the just pennies on the dollar when it came to pay them. My mom worked in there for about a year in the 80's, but resigned in order to be a stay-at-home mom again. I even worked full-time at the Super Walmart across from Razorback Stadium for my last 2 years of college there at the UofA. I was a fast & efficient cashier but only made $4.35/hour and never qualified for health benefits. They refused to allow me to take a 10-week leave while I would be out-of-state internship for an Interior Design firm in order to fulfill one of my college credits that was required in order to earn my bachelor's degree. But they DID allow one of my male coworkers to take leave while he needed to miss work in order to complete an obligation for his education. There were several class action lawsuit filed against Walmart by women who suffered sexual discrimination while employees by Walmart. One of the links below is an article about the top 5 lawsuits filed against Walmart. So, after I fulfilled my internship, I came back to work for them. They considered me a "new hire" and did not offer me health insurance insurance benefits (despite being employed by the same store for one year before I was forced to resign in order to complete my internship). So I did not have health insurance and couldn't even afford to buy a can of food off of the shelf when I was hungry on my lunch break at Walmart, so I struggled with hunger. It was more difficult to attending college full-time, work full-time, complete my architectural drafting and other homework after I got home from work around midnight, AND I had a 40 minute commute each way! We only qualified for $12.00 of food stamps per month and the food bank mostly just gave us bread, canned spinach, and hominy (because they just do not have enough protein to go around). So please consider donating more food to your local food banks AND donating more wholesome and hunger sustaining foods to your local food bank every chance that you have surplus. Since I was rarely home (because I usually left the house at 6:00 AM and returned around 12:00 PM then had to do homework after that) then usually all I had to eat all day were 2 bean burritos that I made. They weren't refrigerated and I already had too much other things to carry for classes (like books, heavy architectural tools & art supplies, and large display boards. Another thing that added to my stress was that my husband Randall's leg had already been amputated and he was also taking classes full-time and working.
If you still choose shop at Walmart, please please be more courteous to them because most of them are so poor that they qualify for food stamps. Even though they may need a full-time job, Walmart only offers most of them as part-time employees in order to avoid offering them benefits (which saves their corporation money while their managers and CEOs earn billions of dollars). They also wrongfully fired one of my classmate's dad last year even though he was the most friendly, best problem-solver, and firm store manager that I ever worked under as a Walmart employee. I do have many good friends who disagree with me about firearm regulation issues, but I still listen to and respect their views. I like that we have the Second Amendment (our right to keep and bear arms which is written into The United States Bill of Rights). Our world has changed and there have been increased incidences of gun violence, but I think that it's a bad idea to add regulations for mentally-stable law-abiding citizens to own firearms if they want to. We can't stop people from killing, because they can easily obtain guns illegally by stealing and/or buying them under the table. So even if you are liberal and/or are an advocate for putting even more restrictions on gun ownership, I beg you to not shop or work at Walmart due to their illegal & unethical hiring practices at least. Sam Walton died back in 1992, but I know that he would NOT allow most of Walmart's policies and lack of compassion for people!
Other Resources:
https://moneyinc.com/biggest-walmart-law-suits-in-company-history/
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/09/business/walmart-guns-open-carry.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKv6RcXa2UI