2009

Wal Mart

Laure CORRECHER

Chérif DJILLALI

Alcidiane JOLY

Xavier LECOQ

Manon LEROY International Human Resources

28/03/09
Morgane VIGNES
Table of contents

Introduction...........................................................................................................................................3
I. Human Resources Marketing.........................................................................................................4
A. Internal Communication.............................................................................................................4
B. Personnel Services......................................................................................................................6
C. External Communication............................................................................................................7
II. Wal-Mart Human Resources communication strategy.................................................................10
A. Career opportunities offered and employees’ well-being........................................................10
B. Brand image through ethic and social commitment.................................................................11
C. Wal-Mart recruiting campaign..................................................................................................13
III. Human Resources in practice...................................................................................................15
A. Working conditions...................................................................................................................15
B. Discrimination..........................................................................................................................16
C. Labor Union vs Wal-Mart..........................................................................................................19
Conclusion............................................................................................................................................24
References............................................................................................................................................25

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Introduction

Communication in the Human Resources has a key role within companies and in
most of them; it is organized at two levels: internal and external communications. The aim of
communication is to have a special place in the potential candidate mind or in the
employees’ minds; it is also a way to create a differentiating point to be able to sustain the
competition against other companies that might also be very active on the job market. This
way companies put into practice strategies to enrol or retain employees.

External communication in the Human Resources is a very important stake to attract

the best candidates and it is a way of ensuring the future performances of the company. This
is an integral part of the recruiting strategy and it has to be carefully elaborated:
communication and marketing is definitely a tool to recruit future employees.
Internal communication represents the continuing application of external
communication as employees loyalty is an everyday life purpose. Indeed, when candidates
become employees, loyalty needs more than ever to be improved.

Nevertheless, we will question here the gap that can exist between the
communication strategy and the situation into practice taking the example of the number one
worldwide retailer (employs 1,3 million people in the United States, it is also the largest
private employer in this country and in Canada and Mexico), Wal-Mart that has been these
last years controversial.

To do it so, we will first discuss the role of communication in Human Resources

analyzing it on an internal and then external point of view, then we will apply the theoretical
part to Wal-Mart communication strategy, especially the recruiting campaigns they have
settled over the years and finally we will talk about the situation into practice taking into
consideration the turmoil they have been in referring to the discriminations and the workers
treatment they have been accused of, and considering the height of trade unions.

What’s at stake here is the fact that the company employs more than 2 million people all
over the world, there are one of the biggest employers in the States and they’ve experienced
lot of turmoil concerning their practices toward their employees.

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 I. Human Resources Marketing

A. Internal Communication

Definition:

Let’s first define the concept of internal communication. According to the online BNET
Business dictionary, internal communication embraces all “the communication between
employees or departments across all levels or divisions of an organization”. It “is a form of
corporate communication and can be formal or informal, upward, downward, or horizontal.”

Stakes:

There are several stakes which show the importance of the internal communication.
But the main challenge for the firm is the loyalty of its employees. It means that it has to
control its turnover. From this, many aims are following, satisfaction among other things.
According to the book “Identifier et fidéliser vos salariés de talent” written by Benjamin
Chaminade, the professional involvement of an employee depends on four factors: the
satisfaction, the promotion, the rules and the confidence. So the firm has to create an
environment of communication. It is crucial for the firm to communicate on its vision, its
culture and its values so that the employees feel more at ease and feel like they are an
integral part of the organization. The aim is also to create a kind of participative logic. In this
way, internal communication allows informing the employees about the important decisions
taken by the senior managers and the problems which are affecting the firm. Those points
will permit the employees to feel involved in the life of the organization. But sometimes, it has
to overcome the rumors too. Nevertheless, the final goal is to organize the ascendant and
descendant communication. Finally, effective internal communication will reinforce
relationships and create a kind of community within the firm.

Message:

First and foremost, before any selection of the media, the senior management should
first think about the message which will be communicated. According to the book Effective
Internal Communication written by Lyn Smith, “simplicity should be the guiding principle
behind the delivery of the specific messages. Information should be kept simple and
presented in language with which the selected audience comfortable”. In other words, it is
essential that managers choose the words they are going to use for the content of the

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message. Moreover, the message should be interested for the employees. So senior
managers should think about what the workforce wants to hear. And above all, employees
expected the firm to be transparent. In the current context of crisis, the organizations have to
reassure them. There's not a day goes by without hearing in the news that a company fires
dozens of people and that the employees are completely amazed.

The channels:

A lot of channels or activities can support the internal communication. It depends on

how many people and which people you want to target. According to the book ”Effective
Internal Communication”, one-to-one communication is the “most valued form of
communication by employees across all sectors”. This kind of communication is used for the
briefing of individual teams members and for the appraisal of the progress. For other
occasions, mass communication is needed, to diffuse information such as business news,
changes, and current affairs. Channels of communication are numerous: from printed papers
(newsletters, magazines), intranet, e-mails, to broadcast and audio-visual means. Others
ways such as integration seminars, meetings are also used to keep in touch and to exchange
with the employees. All those tools are complementary.

Common problems in internal communication:

According to the Field Guide to Leadership and Supervision, 2008, several problems can
occur in internal communication which should be addressed:

- “If I know it, then everyone must know it”: that is one of the most important problem,
managers consider that if they know something, everyone else knows it too. But the
staff can’t know it unless managers make them aware of it;
- “Did you hear what I meant for you to hear?”: that is a problem of message content.
The employees may interpret the message differently than the managers wanted it.
That can cause conflict and misunderstandings;
- “If I need your opinion, I'll tell it to you.”: this mean that managers often don’t pay
attention to the opinion of their subordinates. In other words, employees have to do
their jobs and what they would say has no value.

All those problems show that there is still some way to go before internal communication
is efficient and well used by managers.

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 B. Personnel Services

Personnel services can be used as a complementary mean of internal communication to

improve the loyalty of the employees. But it deals more with their comfort and the personal
development. That is why they are essential. Each firm develops its own services so as to
differentiate from the other companies. They are often complementary offers with those of
the State. Here are some examples to illustrate the wide range of possibilities:

- Human services: they help employees to reconcile their private and professional life.
Ex: day-nursery within the company (Renault, Crédit Lyonnais …); fitness center; dry-
cleaners…
- Financial benefits: profit sharing, stock options, complements of pension (PERCO)…
- Promote professional equity: awareness campaigns about racial, sex-based
discrimination; wage equity; corporate social responsibility (ex: HSBC) …

Those services contribute to the satisfaction and the motivation of the employees. They
understand that they are working in a fair and ambitious environment.

Other tools aim at improving the personal development of the employees:

- Setting up of careers paths: for instance in PSA Peugeot- Citroën Group, there are
qualifying courses, coaching for young managers, training periods to discover the
company…
- Career interviews, career committees… Ex: “Career Dates” Crédit du Nord.

All those tools will strengthen the motivation of the employees thanks to a lot of evolution
and promotion perspectives. Indeed, they see that their employer pay attention to the
individual and that there is kind of reciprocity. So a climate of confidence can emerge.
Moreover, by facilitating the combination of private and professional life, the employers help
their workforce to work in a relaxed state of mind.

To conclude, internal communication and personnel services should be considered not

only as ways to improve the loyalty of the employees but also as way to get a competitive
advantage toward the others firms, all the more so we are in a context of crisis.

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 C. External Communication

Nowadays, Companies are generally starting to discover that the simple action of
advertising a vacancy in the newspaper is no longer adequate means for successful
recruitment. Like the candidates who must learn to sell themselves during an interview, the
company must learn to sell itself, and to charm with its human resources policy in order to
attract and retain the best profiles.

Therefore, the company tends to communicate more and more on its human resources
management and to point up its social initiatives. In other words, to make HR marketing to
seduce.

Two reasons can explain the fact that companies must attract and create employees
loyalty, in a context where the obtaining of resources is complex:

- First, there is a risk of workforce’s shortage by 2015 for the traditional professions and for
the specific training because of the massive retirement (papy-boom).

- Secondly, there is a war of talents, companies have to show initiative and creativity if they
want to attract and retain the most competent and talented associates.

- Finally, the candidates’ expectations towards the employers are becoming more complex;
the candidates are more demanding, they don’t content themselves with an attractive
remuneration any more, today they want the company to offer them future career prospects
in terms of personal development, promotion, and a balance between their professional life
and their private life. According to a survey, candidates are more and more attentive to the
company’s image, values, to the work conditions, and are sensitive to the professional life’s
quality.

Therefore, companies realize how important it is to positively market the company

brand both internally to current employees and externally to potential candidates to
differentiate from others companies. To achieve this, many companies try to build an
attractive image employer by communicating more on their values (from a human or an
ethical point of view), on their cultural identity in order to obtain a better adequacy between
the company’s values and the candidates’ ones. For example on his recruitment’s website,
l’Oreal presents itself as an innovative and a socially responsible company, with values like

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diversity (it insists of the fact that the different culture, beliefs, values of their employees is a
strong value-added), an eco-aware company…

Another example in the recruitment campaign of Crédit du Nord in 2005 .The

campaign’s aim is to show that the bank give priority to the human values rather than the
degrees, it recruits people with personality and diversified profiles instead of people who’s
got a whole string of qualifications.

Companies try also to attract candidates by pointing out and by offering a wide range
of services to their employees. Candidates and especially young graduates are very attentive
to their career perspectives but they also take into account services which allow them to
balance their professional life and their private life and enhance their welfare.

Presenting a policy aimed at preserving the employees’ welfare becomes a

substantial competitive advantage for a company.

Many companies put in place services like day nursery, concierge service, fitness centre but
also social services which help employees in the house-hunting, administrative tasks...
Finally, a great place is reserved to the setting up of flextime.

In order to attract young graduates, many companies develop the relations with the
prestigious universities or schools. Those relations can take different forms:

- Organization of business games like the Oréal Brandstorm which is a competition in

Marketing. Those business games are innovative recruitment tools aimed at attract,
all over the world, the students the most brilliant to which are proposed a unique
professional experience in the most prestigious company like L’Oreal, Procter and
Gamble…For the Oreal Brandstorm , the students selected are invited to create a
new product in the company’s buildings.

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 - Forum in the schools, where companies come to meet students, presenting their
company.

- Newsletters that companies send to all the school’s students to inform students about
the news of the company.

- In order to gain in closeness with prestigious schools, some companies sponsors

sporting events. For example, Total sponsored the 4L trophy this year by giving
money to 15 teams.

Two hundred files have being deposit which represents a good and effective
communication for the company. Others companies organize sporting events like Unilog
which each year organizes a football tournament between students of prestigious schools
which constitute the “target” of the recruitment for Unilog. During this day, students can
discover in parallel, the company and the different jobs and meet the persons in charge of
the recruitment .This is a communication tool which allows to improve the visibility of the
company with students.

Another initiative is the creation of websites devoted to the recruitment .Many companies
have already created their website which introduce their Human Resources Policy, offers an
attractive presentation of the different positions, the career perspectives and testimony of
employees.

Some companies organize strong events like “open day” in their buildings or in symbolic
places. This is the case of La Société Générale which each year organizes a day where the
different jobs are presented to the candidates; there are also spaces of recruitment. Last
year, the “open day” took place at the “Stade de France”, this year it will take place at the
Défense. Another company EADS organizes several times in the year, some visits of the site
for the young graduates and round-table conference with engineers.

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 Finally, a company’s challenge like the HR trophy was founded to reward companies
which are exemplary in their Human Resources policy or in their recruitment. In 2006, Accor
was rewarded because the company had implemented a system of generational
management; other companies are also rewarded for their effort in terms of battle against
discrimination or for the cultural diversity of their employees. This trend was confirmed by the
launching of a classification intitled “great place to work” which establishes the prize list of
companies looking for promoting the quality of life in their company. (cf
http://www.greatplacetowork.fr/)

II. Wal-Mart Human Resources communication strategy

Communicating about its human resources policies is an important stake for companies:
this is a way to send good incentives to people in order to trigger off their curiosity and their
will to come to work within a specific organization.

We have decided to take the example of Wal-Mart to understand concretely what might be
the tools used by companies to communicate about recruiting process and to attract potential
candidates.

First of all, we have to mention the high aim of their human resources website which
enhances their efforts put on the career opportunities offered, on the employee’s well-being
and on their brand image. Then we’ll see their active recruiting campaign as the importance
is to show applicants the company is present and active on the job market.

A. Career opportunities offered and employees’ well-being

In their website, Wal-Mart put the emphasis on the job perspectives their offer: “wide range of
path if you join Wal-Mart”. By doing this, not only are they trying to catch the reader attention
but they are also trying to widen their target as they are mass marketing because the
message really conveys an impression of a commitment to diversity: “We engage in job fairs,
college recruiting, and internships to increase the diversity of our candidate pool for open
positions throughout the company.” Opportunities are given to everybody.

They are directly exposing the benefit earned by working with them: they offer employers to
earn experience, to gather it and to create interactions. In a way they are contributing to the

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increase of Human Capital because they assess themselves as means of the transfer of
knowledge between employers and they also stress the purpose of learning by doing. Finally
they point out the trust and the empowerment employees are granted when they join the
company.

Plus an entire page is dedicated to the opportunities given: Corporate Affairs, Finance,
Marketing, Global Security or Merchandising to name a few so that every applicant can find
what fits best to his or her career profile.

Wal-Mart also advocate for the global scale they have as an argument to enrol candidates.
Employees can evolve within the organization and have international perspectives. Such an
aspect is a sign of power and of worldwide presence.

Now about the employees’ well-being: one of the human resources theories is that
well-being of employees has a direct impact on their job performances, on the atmosphere
and on the advantages they can get out of their position is a determining criteria in the final
decision to join a company or not. Moreover, considering the American context, that is to say
their welfare system which has always been a source of concern for all American workers,
we can understand the stake of underlying the benefit system employers are eligible to as it
is a top priority for them. Benefit is seen as a reward: they detail precisely what are the
advantages of their system. Each employee is given the advantage of choosing the welfare
protection that fits him or her best considering their lifecycle (single, married, parents…)

They consider their employees’ well-being their mission: “We want associates and their
families to have the peace of mind that their healthcare needs will be met, especially when
they need it most. To ensure that peace of mind, Wal-Mart’s health coverage includes no
lifetime maximums on most health care expenses.”

Therefore as in every marketing and communication campaign, whether it deal with human
resources or not, the codes are the same: they stress their strengths by promoting them and
they hide their weaknesses.

B. Brand image through ethic and social commitment

As we have seen until now, Wal-Mart has put into practice a series of techniques in
order the potential candidates to select them: this way Wal-Mart can reduce the impact of the

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asymmetric information and the company is introduced to the people that are really eager to
be part of it.

Not only are they putting the emphasis on the jobs and the perspectives they offer and on
the employees’ well-being, they are also carefully working on their brand image. And here is
a crucial point. Iain Ellwood wrote: “Branding shapes internal company culture”. So they have
built their marketing campaign to attract future employees around the theme of their business
culture.

Indeed, the brand image and the culture of a company might be determining in candidates’
final choice whether to join the firm or not. The basic principles of communication have
stressed the importance of the feeling of belonging to a group. For instance, a very eco-
friendly person will certainly tend to prefer working for a company that takes measures to
prevent pollution rather than working for a company that completely neglects it. This is
because the image of the company reflects in his or her mind the image of the worker.

Therefore, during the last decade, Wal-Mart has started to become socially committed: from
donating money to association to creating a Wal-Mart Foundation. Of course, this
commitment is a way to attract customers but we can’t deny that it is an argument to catch
job seekers attention.

Let’s focus on their human resources website. An entire page is dedicated to their global
presence. In the middle the catch-phrase “To succeed in this world, you have to change all
the time” can be read. That implies that Wal-Mart is evolving at the same pace than the world
considerations. They deal with nowadays problematic and they appear to be flexible enough
to do it so.

“Wal-Mart is known across the world for offering its customers the products they need at
prices they can afford.” Isn’t that strange to find this kind of sentence in a company human
resources website? They are directly alluding to the customer while they are targeting future
employees. But by expressing this, they show their potential employees that they are
customer-oriented rather than profit-oriented. They are inviting potential candidates to join
them and to be part of that mission.

Another key remark, they invite the visitors of the website to have a reflexion about Wal-Mart
getting involved in associations: “Think about this: In February 2008, Wal-Mart made a
$1,000,000 donation to the Red Cross Society of China for disaster relief in areas impacted
by the worst snowstorms in China in half a century.

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Plus, they don’t call their employees “workers” or “employees”, they call them “associates”
which creates a group dynamic and which reduces the effect of hierarchy. People are
psychologically sensitive to that.

Finally, they have posted a video with pictures relating their worldwide social actions such as
their commitment to Indian orphans, to starving people in Argentina, Brazil and Mexico.

So, through all these techniques, and through this marketing approach, Wal-Mart is
demonstrating its social actions. More than words, they are using videos to show that they
are evolving with the environment, that they respect it and try to contribute to a better world.
What is actually at stake here is to invite people to join the firm. By doing it, they will be able
to perform their task and to have the satisfaction of contributing to social matters at the same
time.

C. Wal-Mart recruiting campaign

As it was said previously, Wal-Mart is one of the biggest employers in the world. They are
established in a wide range of countries and the more it goes the more they are expanding.
Therefore, they have to deal with an increasing job offer. To respond to that, they have
launched various recruiting campaigns whose purpose is again to attract and enrol people.
They’ve settled a system based on adverse selection: the campaigns deliver general
information (to have a better and a wider impact) so that potential candidates have enough
data to respond to that and to select themselves.

First, we need to stress the importance of selecting the right candidates. Employees are the
direct link with the customers: what they represent, their well-being has a direct impact on the
relationship they have with them. The idea is that to represent the variety of customers,
companies need to employ diverse people.

To perform that, the Human Resources Department has adopted a marketing approach.
They have analysed the job market and they’ve segmented it to finally target it. One of the
ways they are used to segment relies on the community segmentation that we will talk about
below.

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 Let’s take again the website of the Human Resources. The site is based on a very
welcoming design. Each page has its own blue frame in which we can see a person
standing. To encourage all races, both female and male to join Wal-Mart and to prove they
are not discriminative; these people are different from one page to another. The black, the
Latino, the Asian and the white communities are all represented. Women and men are also
present and they use strong catchphrases as a marketing tool: “Select your path and live
better”; “Your success is our goal”, to name a few. They are imposing this way a
phenomenon of identification. Through identification, the candidate selects himself or herself
as the right person to join the firm.

Then, Wal-Mart also participates to national recruitment conference by sponsoring it or by

being part of it. As in the website, they take again the targeting communities marketing tool.

In fact, they have a well defined campaign of recruitment. As an example, in 1997, Wal-Mart
decided to launch its brand new recruiting campaign (they had planned to hire over than 200
thousand new employees at that time) during the National Hispanic Employees’
Association’s (NHEA) third annual conference. Not only were they present during the
conference but also they had signed a partnership with this association: “We wanted to get
the word out about our national recruitment campaign in the Hispanic community and felt the
NHEA conference and career expo was a great place to start” said Coleman Peterson,
senior vice president of Wal-Mart’s People Division.

Their campaigns and actions are also reactive in oder to reduce to silent the consequences
of scandals, in this case with the black community, Wal-Mart donated $5 million in 2006 to
the National Urban League to finance workforce development and some other programs that
would facilitate the black empowerment group.

In other words, they segment the potential candidates based on minority criteria and they
apply specific strategy to target them all.

The company is indeed targeting its potential employees creating through recruiting
campaigns and using marketing tools the envy among people thanks to the identification
phenomenon.

So we have seen that Wal-Mart is definitely making efforts in marketing and advertising in
the sector of the Human Resources. They adopt a strategy that consists in promoting the
career opportunities the employees are offered, in stressing the importance granted to their
well-being within the company, in being socially committed and in launching recruiting
campaigns targeting the potential employees and adopting a customer point of vie to do it so.

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 Nevertheless, is the strategic marketing policy connected to reality? Or can we talk about
a gap between both. The consequences and the risks of every kind of human resources
marketing and communication strategy are to be over the board of reality and not to be able
to avoid turmoil and scandals. This is what the second part will about as the focus will be put
on the Human Resources in practice.

III. Human Resources in practice

A. Working conditions

Wal-Mart has also faced accusations involving poor working conditions of its employees. For
instance, an average of 150,000 people was forced to work off-the-clock, was denied
overtime pay, or was not allowed taking rest and lunch breaks.

Concerning the testimonies of Wal-Mart employees,

The firm has faced problems concerning new stores locations as for instance the store Wal-
Mart Superstore opened in 2004 in Mexico, not far away from the historic Teotihuacán
archaeological site and Pyramid of the Moon. Although Wal-Mart's proposal received protest
and media attention, Wal-Mart has been accused of predatory pricing that is to say selling
items at too low a cost for the purpose of injuring competitors and destroying competition. In
addition, several public organizations accused Wal-Mart for "monopolistic practices" that is
to say they blame the firm to sell goods below cost or at prices significantly less than those
available to other stores. In other words, on stample goods for instance Wal-Mart has been
pointed to force competitors out of the business and gain monopoly on local markets.
Concerning its suppliers, Wal-Mart has been accused of monopsony practices because it
dictates prices to its sellers in order to sell its goods at prices lower than all the competitors.
These allegations of Wall Mart negotiating way show the human resources managing
problems of the company.

Afterwards, concerning the employees’ relationships of the firm it is obvious that lots of
critical points are argued by the workers. In one hand, 70% of the employees leave Wal-
Mart within the first year that is to say the turnover rate is very high and they didn’t agree with
the top-management policy and the issues involving low wages, poor working conditions,
inadequate health care, and strong anti-union policies are some explanations of the Wal-

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Mart’s human resources problems. In other hand, even though there is an unhappy
workforce, there is an average of 3500 applications for 350 positions American people think
the brand is a great place to work.

The report of the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy underlines that the employees
are paid 20% less than the average retail workers and pay its workers at least $2 more an
hour and add $1 or $2 an hour beyond that to improve its health benefits. Wal-Mart
managers are judged, in part, based on their ability to control payroll costs.

The enterprise argues that it is difficult to compare because Wal-Mart employs more part
time workers and the company's more extensive training, supervision and automation
provides opportunity to workers with little or no experience or skills and this may account for
wage differences. But it is obvious the company doesn’t make any efforts to avoid overtime
work without compensation

Indeed, the Wall Mart philosophy is based on its 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."

Wal-Mart is considered as 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 US trade deficit with China as of 2004…

…One more reason to blame their working conditions and the way they implement their
business.

B. Discrimination

A big worry about Wal-Mart is its behavior toward employees. Several cases of
discrimination have been identified and prove that the company mistreats workers and
applicants as well.

First of all, we will identify who are the victims of such a system and how they are
discriminated. Then, we will point out the reaction of Wal-Mart. Finally, we will see what Wal-
Mart does now in order to prevent class actions from happening.

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 1- The victims of Wal-Mart

Among the victims of Wal-Mart, we find all categories: women, disabled people and also
long-term workers. We will describe how these different categories suffer from discrimination.

 Women

It’s obvious that a glass ceiling does exist in Wal-Mart. Women suffer from low salaries, bad
promotions, sexual harassments, bad working conditions… so a lot of reasons to complain
because of unfairness compared to men.

That’s what happened for example in 2001: six women sued Wal-Mart in California mainly
because of bad promotions and lower salaries than men. Thus, the lawsuit was so important
that it concerned all female workers employed in the 3400 American supermarkets of the
chain since December 26th 1998, so over 1.5 million plaintiffs. The result is the largest class
action of the American history.

More precisely, the purpose of that class action is more complex and denounces cruel acts.
We can quote some scandalous discriminatory remarks from managers: “retail is hard and
not appropriate for women…women have to be “bitches” to survive in Wal-Mart
management…God made Adam first, so women would always be second to men…Men are
here to make a career and women aren’t.”

About promotions: in order to reduce costs, Wal-Mart hires mainly women for basic tasks
and lower wages than for men. This can be explained by the fact that, in 2001, more than
two-thirds of workers are female whereas only one-third of managerial positions are held by
them. Moreover, women deserve more consideration according to their longer seniority and
their merit.

About salaries: as said before, women are paid less than men. For instance, in 2001, female
managers earned on average $14 500 less than men in the same position and female hourly
workers earned about $1 100 less than their male peers. Even after taking into consideration
seniority and performance, for the same position, women earned from 5 to 15 percent less
than male counterparts. Wal-Mart also reduces to silence those who try to oppose its bad
practices.

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  Disabled people

Wal-Mart is known for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA): until September
2005, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) had filed nineteen suits
against Wal-Mart because of that. That discrimination concerns qualified disabled workers
and job applicants.

About disabled workers: unfairly fired by Wal-Mart just because of disability-related

reasons.

About job applicants: rejects of applications and pre-employment questionnaires to screen

applicants through the “Matrix of Essential Job Functions.” All is done in order to scare away
disabled people who want to work at Wal-Mart.

It is so scandalous that even the EEOC chairwoman Ida Castro said: “It is extremely
troubling that one of the nation’s largest employers continues to show a reckless disregard
for the statutory rights of individuals with disabilities…These far-reaching court sanctions
should put Wal-Mart on notice to invest its vast resources in rooting out discrimination at their
stores rather than stringing along plaintiffs with agreements they do not intended to fulfill.”

 Long-Term Workers

We all know that the more you stay in a company, the more costly you are for it. Wal-Mart
doesn’t care how long people work; it just fires those who stayed long enough to aspire to
higher wages. A relevant testimony about it: “They want to get rid of them because they’ve
been there a number of years, some with the grandfathered [time-and-a-half] rule on
Sundays, some up on the pay scale. They can bring in a new person at $7.50.”

It is a so high-level concern within Wal-Mart that a memo stipulates that a worker with 7
years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of a worker with 1 year of tenure,
and this without any difference of productivity.

A way to get rid of Long-Term Workers consists in setting specific quotas to employees
according to their level of salary. To sum up, the more you win, the higher the goal. And vice-
versa for the beginners. It implies that the task is tougher for long-term workers and puts
pressure on them in order to scare them away. Obviously, Wal-Mart managers set
unreachable goals on purpose for those who are too costly for the company. A worker on
condition of anonymity says: “One of the ladies, a few weeks ago, her demo was fifty-one
bags of frozen strawberries. That week, we had just brought in fresh berries from California.
She went up and asked how to sell [frozen] berries when there were fresh ones. They said
not to complain.”

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The goal is to make life a nightmare for long-term workers and the working conditions
become so awful for them that they cannot resist.

2- The reaction of Wal-Mart

We can observe the stubbornness of Wal-Mart. Even with many lawsuits, it tries to go on
with its bad practices, cheating and lying on the facts.

Following the authorization of the US federal district court for the six individual plaintiffs to
represent more than 1.5 million female Wal-Mart employees, the incriminated company is
now facing the largest employment sex discrimination lawsuit in US history.

Nevertheless, Wal-Mart decided to appeal, arguing that it represents only isolated cases. It
also claims that women are not interested in or don’t have the competencies for higher
positions.

3- What is done in order to prevent lawsuits from happening

The company makes efforts to avoid scandals. That’s why in November 2003, the company
created the office of diversity: the goal is to check that the proportion of qualified minorities
and women promoted is equal to the proportion of applicants.

Moreover, in 2004, Wal-Mart reviews its compensation program in order to improve internal
equity and external competitiveness. The goal is to attract more people to work at the
company.

Another novelty for the same year, Wal-Mart implements a new career preference system so
that employees can show their interest in specific positions or other locations and be aware
of the availability for these positions.

C. Labor Union vs Wal-Mart

The bad working conditions in Wal-Mart stores and the discrimination explain the high
difficulty for trade Unions to be organized and to have power.

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 1- Why do people unionize?

People unionize because through collective bargaining they can deal higher wages. This
allows the reduction of wage inequalities. In fact unions raise the wages for those who need
it the most.

In 2000, unionized carpenters averaged 16% higher wages than non-union carpenters.

In 2005, in the USA, the mean hourly wage pay for a union member was $22.65, compared
to the $17.77 earned by non-union members that year.

So, unions permit employees to get a higher pay standard. Thus, they are happier and more
productive because they are motivated by their salary.

Then, unions help the workers to get an acceptable health insurance.

2- The Wal-Mart practices: the observation

Wal-Mart is extremely anti-union which is very lucrative for the firm because it keeps pay,
promotions and benefit expenses to a minimum!

 Wages

Wal-Mart employs more people in the United States than in any other country and the
majority of its employees live below the poverty line.

In 2005, to reach the basic needs for a two-person family, a family had to make more than
$27,948 annually but the average associate at Wal-Mart made $17,114 yearly.

This is more than $10,000 below the necessary $27,948 needed to meet the basic needs of
only a two-person household.

 Health insurance

66% of large US firms provide their workers health coverage on the job, only 46% of Wal-
Mart workers have insurance.

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 3- How does Wal-Mart prevent the creation of trade unions

Wal-Mart Stores Incorporation has used lots of tactics (some are illegal) to block the ability of
its workers to form labor unions.

According to Human Rights Watch – a United States of America based NGO that conducts
research and advocacy on human rights - the world's largest seller has restricted the spread
of pro-union views, threatened to withhold benefits from workers who organize, interrogated
workers about their union sympathies and sent managers to spy employees’ conversations.

- Atmosphere of fear and intimidation

Wal-Mart has refused to negotiate collectively, fired employees it knows to be pro-union and
focused security cameras on areas where union organizing is heaviest, according to the
HRW report. Many tactics comport with U.S. law but taken together they create a climate of
fear and intimidation.

- The process begins when Wal-Mart hires new employees

Wal-Mart exposes new hires to anti-union training sessions and videos, gives managers
union-prevention manuals and uses a centralized database to chase union activity across the
stores.

Wal-Mart often warns new workers during their orientations about the negative
consequences of organizing. The company provides similar warnings to managers at all
levels and gives them explicit instructions on preventing union formation, such as carefully
supervising store morale, many of which are contained in the company's "Manager's
Toolbox".

One key instrument in the Toolbox is Wal-Mart's Open Door Policy, which asserts that
workers may raise concerns with managers and, if they are not satisfied with the response,
take their concerns to any level of management without fear of retaliation. The Toolbox is the
"greatest barrier" to worker organizing. Wal-Mart constantly mentions the Open Door Policy
to workers as a main reason why workers do not need a "third-party representation".

- Other illegal tactics

Wal-Mart has also illegally threatened workers with significant consequences if they form a

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union, including loss of benefits, such as raises.

It has also illegally employed several methods to gather information about union activity while
concurrently forcing workers to stop organizing. The company has coercively interrogated
workers about their co-workers' union sympathies through direct and often hostile
questioning and sent managers to spy the discussions among employees in a proposed
bargaining unit.

Wal-Mart has been so successful at ruining worker efforts to develop unions that only once
since the company opened in 1962 have workers organized.

- Example of Argentina

Wal-Mart currently employs 5,800 workers in Argentina.

Argentina's national congress led an investigation into Wal-Mart's labor system in July 2007.

First, Wal-Mart is anti-unions in Argentina. Gustavo Cordoba, a labor activist at a Wal-Mart

store in Buenos Aires, was fired because of his union activity. He testified before the
investigative committee about the corporation's anti-union practices. The retail chain prohibits
workers from referring to themselves as employees, and insists on the term "associates."
They are forced to sing the Wal-Mart anthem at work.

Then, workers report that Wal-Mart uses humiliating tactics in the stores, in some cases
going as far as prohibiting workers from taking bathroom breaks. For example, a 19-year-old
cashier was prevented from going to the bathroom after she asked for permission. Although
she was menstruating, the supervisor made her wait for 30 minutes. When she had stained
her pants, the supervisor accompanied her to the bathroom and brought her new pants and
underwear for her to continue working her shift.

Another concern is that Wal-Mart has hired ex-military officers who operated during the
nation's bloody 1976-1983 military junta for administrative and security positions within the
company.

To finish with, one single store in Buenos Aires reports sales of more than $3.3 million per
month, and an employee makes about $300 a month. With rising inflation, Wal-Mart's
salaries fall below poverty levels, where a family needs a minimum of $600 a month to meet
basic needs.

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 4- The actions led against Wal-Mart

Fifty-seven class action lawsuits filed since 2000 complain that Wal-Mart broke wage and
hour laws by forcing workers to work "off the clock," neglecting to pay them overtime and
refusing them meals and rest breaks.

As a consequence, the United Food & Commercial Workers (UFCW) led a demonstration
against Wal-Mart. Then, it was followed by the TUAC in Québec in 2003. They decided to
launch an action of unionization in the north of America. In 2005, the UFCW and the Service
Employees International Union decided to boycott all Wal-Mart supermarkets. They were
followed by ecological groups.

5- The Wal-Mart practices: the controversy of the leaders

Wal-Mart spokesman David Tovar said the Human Rights Watch report is based on
"unsubstantiated allegations" and added that the retailer respects its workers' right to a free
and fair unionization vote.

"Wal-Mart provides an environment of open communications and gives our associates every
opportunity to express their ideas, comments and concerns," Tovar. "It is because of our
efforts to foster such an environment that our associates have repeatedly rejected
unionization attempts."

Wal-Mart CEO H. Lee Scott Jr defends Wal-Mart's explaining that the firm has an open-door
policy. Workers can talk to their district manager that is why they don’t need to have a third-
party representation to deal with their problems because the issue can be resolved within the
store.

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Conclusion

As a conclusion, what makes human resources communication so important is the

competitive advantage that it can create compared to competitors because from that strategy
on it might directly be linked to the performance of employees referring to the internal
communication, and to potential candidates’ choice on an external point of view.

Nevertheless, we have learnt from the Wal-Mart case that there might be a gap between
human resources communication strategy and its application when it comes to the
application.

In other words, communication can give to the company a competitive advantage, but it can
also give a disadvantage when it is not applied in reality. Indeed, employers can express
their dissatisfaction using the same tools used by companies and Trade Unions have played
a great role in terms of employees’ emancipation.

In the case of Wal-Mart, the worldwide retailer has suffered from the empowerment of their
employees that are expressing loudly their concern about their working conditions and the
treatment they are undergoing. We definitely have to point out that employees’ loyalty can
only be improved in reality: communication is a mean, not an end to reach it.

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References

I. Human Resources Marketing

http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/internal+communication.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_communications

http://www.journaldunet.com/management/dossiers/050272marketing_rh/index.shtml

http://www.loreal.fr/_fr/_fr/carriere-l-oreal.aspx

http://www.quatrevents.fr/site/MARKETING_RH/Recruter_les_meilleurs_talents_pour_Total/

Effective Internal Communication

Author: Smith, Lyn
Editor: Kogan Page, Limited
Publication: 2005

Identifiez et fidélisez vos salariés de talent

Author: Chaminade, Benjamin
Editor: AFNOR
Publication: 2003

II. Wal-Mart Human Resources communication Strategy

http://walmartstores.com/

Essential Brand Book: Over 100 techniques to increase brand value (2nd edition) p1
Author: Ellwood, Iain
Editor: Kogan Page, Limited
Publication: 2002

Wal-Mart donates $5 million to black rights group, source provided by Reuters

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III. Human Resources in practice

A. Working conditions

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/04/business/walmart.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Wal-Mart

B. Discrimination

Alternatives Economiques -  n°256 - Mars 2007

http://www.alternatives-economiques.fr/discrimination---wal-mart-
vise_fr_art_209_24739.html

http://wakeupwalmart.com/facts/#Wal-Mart%20&%20Gender%20Discrimination

http://www.hrw.org/en/node/10970/section/6

http://www.business-marketing.com/store/article-walmart.html

C. Labor unions vs Wal-Mart

“ARGENTINA: WAL-MART FACES ACCUSATIONS OF ANTI-UNION PRACTICES Written

by Marie Trigona    Tuesday, 04 December 2007 Source: Americas Program

Wal-Mart And Unions: Community Effects of Union & Non-Union Labor by Desiree
Sanchez, Daniel Scrivner, Roberto Garcia Jr, and Fabian Renteria

Article « Les syndicats :le dos au mur » taken from Québec en mouvements (Idées et
pratiques militantes contemporaines),Francis Dupuis-Déri, Lux, 2008, p. 97-110.

Wal-Mart's Scott: We're Not "Anti - Union"BusinessWeek, Oct. 3, 2005

Discounting Rights : Report « Wal-Mart's Violation of US Workers’ Right to Freedom of

Association » by Human Rights Watch April 30, 2007

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