Talk:Criticism of Walmart

Biased by definition of the title

The very title of this article states it as a biased view point, containing only criticism of Walmart. In this article numerous complaints against Walmart are described but it is rarely mentioned what Walmart did to address those issues, nor are any beneficial activities of Walmart mentioned, such as:

Hurricane Katrina ravaged America’s Gulf Coast. The storm hit some of Walmart’s stores and clubs. Some of the company’s employees lost their homes and savings; a few lost their lives. Still, Walmart associates in the region rose to meet the challenges.

One store manager in Waveland, Mississippi, took a bulldozer to clear a path into and through her store, finding every dry item she could to give to neighbors who needed shoes, socks, food and water. "She didn’t call the Home Office and ask permission," Scott noted. "She just did the right thing."

In Katrina’s aftermath, government agencies, relief agencies and communities turned to Walmart (and other companies) to help. Walmart, with its sophisticated and highly efficient logistics operation, was able to get supplies to where they were needed far faster than federal and state agencies could. It was a shining moment for the company, and some much-needed positive press.

I do not work for Walmart, but upon reading this article it simply struct me as biased, one sided and unfair. There are statements such as:

While Walmart did "stabilize" the landslide, many residents said that Walmart merely stabilized the hillside so that it could continue with work to build the store.

What information did these residents have as to Walmart's motive? How was this landslide Walmart's fault? Might this not have happened to anyone attempting to construct a building on this site? Was there any reason to think that an attempt to build on the site would cause such a landslide? If that were even the case, would not the responsibility fall upon the city's build and zoning department to deny the construction request, or insist that certain precautions be taken? And after all this despite the unsubstantiated claim that "Walmart merely stabilized the hillside so that it could continue with work to build the store", the store was not constructed on this site, but was built somewhere else. Doesn't this run counter to the claim that "Walmart merely stabilized the hillside so that it could continue with work to build the store"?

This is one example, if you read through this article, you will see many other places where it is stated that so and so claims that… and opponents say…, etc. Just because they say it does not make it so. Perhaps instead of an article that is titled "Criticism of Walmart" it should be titled "The Reputation of Walmart" and should included at least some discussion of things that Walmart is trying to do right like the Katrina example I gave above. Don't get me wrong,I think Walmart has many issues, not the least of which is that many of their products are imported, taking jobs away from US workers, but I think the subject deserves a fair discussion, and this article is not it.

To quote "Criticism of Wikipedia"

The purpose of the Wikipedia project has been criticized for the uneven handling, acceptance, and retention of articles about controversial subjects.

and

Further concerns are that the organization allows the participation of anonymous editors (facilitating editorial vandalism); the existence of social stratification (allowing cliques); and over-complicated rules (allowing editorial quarrels), which conditions permit the misuse of Wikipedia.

Unreliable content; in “Wikipedia: The Dumbing Down of World Knowledge” (2010), Edwin Black characterized the editorial content of articles as a mixture of “truth, half-truth, and some falsehoods”.[1] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 23.115.249.137 (talk • contribs) 19 November 2015‎ 10:52 (UTC)

References

Midtown Walmart section

The language in the "Midtown Walmart" section seems rather slanted with statements like

The proposal never met local regulations because Walmart never owned all of the land upon which it planned to build, yet they fought a five year fight to build on land they didn't own and the City strangely violated all of its laws to help make that happen.

and

The Midtown development already contains a Target and a Ross which makes another big box retailer like Walmart redundant for the site. The Walmart broke ground with an illegal permit from the City of Miami in January 2016, after a panel of state judges in the 3rd District Court of Appeals blocked a petition challenging the development.

I'm not familiar enough with the situation to remove the slanted language while ensuring accuracy, but the section is so slanted against Walmart that it sounds almost as if it were ripped off a website of some group protesting the Walmart development in question (though I haven't found this specific language anywhere else). jon/bla/tho/talk 19:16, 3 September 2018 (UTC)

"No AEDs in stores" section

This section is silly. Somebody clearly has it in for Walmart. "In a case of missed opportunity affecting both customers and potentially employees..." If AEDs are required in a given jurisdiction (which is rare), then a store will have them. If not, there's little basis to criticize Walmart. They probably don't wan't the liability of their employees being responsible for playing paramedic. They also don't want their employees chasing after shoplifters, because that's best left to the police. I've worked in other retail stores, and we didn't have AEDs either.

The story about the woman in Alberta is an anecdote. If her daughters knew she had a heart condition, they should have planned their outing accordingly. If not, would the outcome have been any better at home? I doubt they had an AED there. Any business with millions of customers is going to experience a few natural deaths each year; it's just statics (e.g. if you have over 6,000 stores that are larger than 100,000 square feet). You hear about commercial airliners making emergency landings because of heart conditions all the time, but news outlets don't generally blame the airlines. Speaking of which, a heart attack is not synonymous with cardiac arrest. Defibrillators won't do much for heart attacks. – voidxor 23:52, 21 December 2019 (UTC)