Mariela Weaver
English 1301 – Essay
February 13, 2015 Karen Olsson: Up Against Wal-Mart In Karen Olsson article, “Up Against Wal-Mart,” she addresses some of the negative aspects of Wal-Mart. The article with Jennifer Mclaughlin’s story; Jennifer is a full time employee at Wal-Mart with a one year old child. The article mentions the job description, which is mainly being able to work in different departments in one shift. Each employee is expected to do extra work due to being shortly staff. Wal-Mart puts no effort in to hiring new employees; instead they push and overwork their current staff. Jennifer has been a loyal employee at Wal-Mart for three years and gets paid $16,800 a year working full time. It is expressed that employees are obligated to work overtime regularly without pay or they will lose their job. Jenifer claims that you cannot make it on your own as a Wal-Mart employee unless you have someone helping you or you are a manager. Olsson states that in this economy one cannot survive on a Wal-Mart paycheck but yet it’s the dominant employer. Jennifer, as well as many Wal-Mart employees nation-wide, became frustrated with being mistreated and start forming unions began. Wal-Mart responded by trying to stop the employees from organizing and even firing union supporters. Wal-Mart aggressively fights unions that many employees are intimidated to join one in the fear of losing their jobs. The company even enforced hour-long anti- union meetings consisting of