Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) and its workers are in the war of words over wages and there are fears that such difference may hurt holiday sales. The retailer, the largest in the world, has in nearly three years been the subject of labor issues in major shopping events like the Black Friday, The Washington Post highlighted in an article. With issues of salaries having been a recurrent theme at Wal-Mart with clients and investors taking the notice, the company is in a challenging position.
Competing in the low-price retail segment means that the company must keep its costs and expenses low as well. However, keeping a low profile on the employee remuneration doesn’t go down well with the workers and that has been evident in Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) in the recent times. The retailer may not escape a disturbance that could cripple its operations on the Black Friday if workers backed by a union make good their threat to go on strike.
Workers and even unions are hard on Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) because whatever goes on there has the potential of impacting what goes on elsewhere in the retail industry. As the world’s largest retail organization, Wal-Mart is a measuring yard for the unions and employees clamoring for higher pay and more hours, it seems.
Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (NYSE:WMT) claims to pay an average of $11.81 in hourly wage for the workers that exclude managers. That amount is more than $11.39, which is the average national retail sale of workers. However, with the family of Walton featuring high on the Forbes list of the billionaires, inequality in the remuneration is not hard to notice. Such even create hardliners in the push for improved payment at the company.
It remains to be seen how the retailer negotiates with its workers to avoid the impact of widespread strikes, especially on critical shopping days. The company boasts about 1.3 million workers. It is one of the major companies that are actively adopting green energy to power their operations. The company tapped fuel-cell technology for its forklifts.
