Employee Dilemmas

One of the ethical dilemmas raised in the case of Walmart would be the unfair treatment of their employees. Poor workplace conditions, discrimination, and cutting healthcare as well as wages are the prime issues. We will put our focus on healthcare. Between 2000 and 2005, walmart’s stock decreased by 27 percent due to bad publicity. This was because of a memo sent by the executive vice president for benefits, Susan Chambers. The memo discussed that the workers hired should be part-time, healthy and more productive. The reason being, if workers hours are less than 30, walmart can eliminate health care for new employees and also cut health benefits for current employees. Working less than 30 hours can also be subject to Medicaid by the federal government. Therefore putting the responsibility on the government instead of walmart. Other firms implement this strategy as well but economists believe that walmart is so large their actions could hurt the economy.

An alternative would be to give the employees 30 hour work weeks to have their full benefits. This may take away from walmart’s profit but it will increase their stock prices as well as their PR. Or the second alternative is to keep their employees with less than 30 hours a week and have Medicaid help them.

An egoist would suggest to increase profits and keep their employees working less than 30 hours a week. Bad PR and lower stock prices may be seen as a negative but it is possible that not giving