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Briana Wilson
Professor Harrold
English 305
20 April 2017
The Greatest Super Store: Good or Bad
Walmart is the greatest known super store around the United States. In 2005 Robert
Greenwald released
Walmart: the High Cost of Low Prices.
A controversial documentary arguing
that Walmart is not a good company. Greenwald’s film displays the many negative impacts
Walmart has put upon communities and employees. Through interviews with customers, current,
and former Walmart employees, and families, they were able to give a good incite on the many
pains Walmart has caused. Some of those being, the poor treatment of employees, along with the
greed of the company. In reply to the first documentary, another one was later released
combatting the arguments made in the first documentary. Written by Ron Galloway,
Why
Walmart Works and Why that Drives People Crazy,
in this second documentary
,
the producer
argued the exact opposite, that Walmart is good.
In this documentary they use the same
techniques, using employees, or former employees, to argue their point along with people from
the community Walmart had a positive impact on. The documentary gives examples to combat
the idea that they are not a greedy company, and its employees are treated well. The ultimate
question in both documentary’s, is Walmart good or bad?
As described in the first documentary, the examples spoken about go to prove that
Walmart does not treat its employees well. Multiple African American employees shared their
stories about how they were treated very poorly, experiencing discrimination, and racial slurs.
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One African American woman, who worked for Walmart, explained that for many years she was
pursuing a management position. She soon was halted with her dreams when her manager said to
her, “There is no place for people like you in management.” The woman goes along to ask what
he means by people like you saying is it because I am black, or a woman? The manager replies
with being two out of the three isn’t bad. The simple fact that a person in power thought it was
okay to say this, and get away with it goes to show that Walmart management does not take
proper action to protect its employees. This wasn’t the only poor treatment of employees that
Walmart has let happen. Stated in the video, In 2005 Walmart was involved in a 2 million dollar
class action lawsuit for the discrimination of female employees. One Other African American
employee named Phenix Montgomery, experienced almost the same thing. Montgomery explains
