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Resource ID: #21367
Subject: Business
Source: Los Angeles Times
Date: 23-Nov-03


This investigation shows how Wal-Mart as a corporation has both positive and negative effects on the world. The corporation is huge, it is the world's largest corporation and does more than eight times the sales as Microsoft. The article shows how the company prospers by cutting costs in any way possible, but also how its low costs affect the global economy. Factory workers overseas have wages cut down to pennies so Wal-Mart will buy their products, local grocery chains are forced out of business by Wal-Mart superstores and employees who are prohibited from unionizing don't make enough to support a family, even when working forty hours a week. Wal-Mart managers use illegal tactics to keep employees from joining unions and sometimes coerce employers to work overtime without being paid for it.

