A friend has asked me on multiple occasions, "Where'd you get that bathing suit?" or "Those overalls are so cute for spring, what store did you get them from?" or "Nice matching workout clothes. What brand are they?" My reply is always the same: Walmart.
Why, you may ask? Well, I simply love Walmart. It was an on-going joke with my friends and teachers in high school that if Riley was wearing something cute, it was always from Walmart. I pride myself on being able to find good pieces and being able to cutely make them work with a chic outfit. It's funny because Walmart isn't necessarily known for its cute clothes, so my friends used to tease me about how I should definitely become a Walmart spokesperson.
Until this day, my opinion of Walmart was the same: If you want everything all in one place for a cheap price, Walmart is the store to go! As an American multinational retail corporation that operates a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores and grocery stores, Walmart is the world's largest company by revenue, according to the 2014 Fortune Global 500 list. Owned by the Walton family and operated out of Arkansas, this company is more profitable than rivals Kmart and Sears.
However, it was up until I was assigned to read Robert B. Reich's essay "Don't Blame Wal-Mart" for my English Composition 101 class, that my mind has changed. The professor of public policy at the University of California at Berkeley analyzed criticisms on the Walmart stores and argued how we as human beings could fix the detriment Walmart has had on local communities, its employees, labor unions, etc.
It was brought to my attention that my beloved Walmart has been protested against for the company's policies and business practices, including charges of racial and gender discrimination, foreign product sourcing, treatment of product suppliers, environmental practices, its affect on small businesses, and employee treatment. Reich described an incident where a real estate developer had given up plans to include a Walmart at a mall in Queens. "In the eyes of Wal-Mart's detractors," Reich states, "the Arkansas-based chain embodies the worst kind of economic exploitation: it pays 1.2 million American workers an average of only $9.68 an hour, doesn't provide most of them with health insurance, keeps out unions, has a checkered history on labor law and turns main streets into ghost towns by sucking business away from small retailers." Reich continues to analyze Walmart's actions and how we as consumers feed into the bureaucracy. Reich concludes his essay by stating that only way he believes consumers will stop shopping there is if there are laws and regulations against it.
With all of this new information in mind, my opinion of my once favorite store has drastically changed. I no longer want to feed into the destruction of small businesses and terrible treatment of employees. And although the choices we make in the market don't fully reflect our values as workers or as citizens, I still don't want to be a part of a store that is known for such horrible actions. I am insulted and am definitely not going to be shopping there as often as I do.
