Wal-Mart's Culture of Crime and Greed

[G_j]

http://www.alternet.org/story/21658/

Wal-Mart's Culture of Crime and Greed

By Jonathan Tasini, TomPaine.com. Posted April 4, 2005.


Manipulation, greed and wrongdoing in the name of profit are as much a part of the Wal-Mart business model as are those low, low prices.
The Beast of Bentonville (better known as Wal-Mart) is grappling with a spate of management dismissals and investigations over the past few months that appear rooted in internal petty thievery. But rather than a few bad apples being rooted out, it's clear that crime, greed, wrongdoing, malfeasance and cronyism are deeply embedded in the Wal-Mart business model. Indeed, Wal-Mart could not survive without manipulating the system and breaking the law.

In case you didn't catch it, Thomas Coughlin--a former vice chair of the company and at one time a potential future CEO candidate--was forced to resign from the board because of, as the British Financial Times reported on its front page, an "alleged unauthorized use of corporate-owned gift cards and personal reimbursements that appear to have been obtained from the company through the reporting of false information on third-party invoices and company expense reports. The amount in controversy is estimated to be in the range of $100,000 to $500,000." Translation: the guy padded his expense accounts.

In the current investigation, three other employees, including a company officer, were also dismissed. And back in December, three other executives and four employees were fired for violating "unspecified" company rules. I would venture to guess that those rules had nothing to do, for example, with treating workers badly (that kind of conduct actually calls for a promotion at the Beast of Bentonville, or at least a one-time visit to the company's executive washroom) but with other financial wrongdoing.

But why should this be surprising? The culture of Wal-Mart encourages and condones misbehavior among its leaders every day. Let me tick off just the highlights--or lowlights, as the case may be.

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[Karenina]

1. Kick!

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[G_j]

2. kick