Shankavi's International business assignment International business | Page 27

Learning Strand:

The learning strand that this relates to is working in international markets. It relates specifically to employee issues because this incident revolves around the employees of Walmart. The workers are having a problem with the Walmart Company because the Company is cutting their hours and the workers are not making enough wages. They are frustrated with Walmart doing this to them because it is unfair. This will affect the company because there are less people working at Walmart because of shorter shifts and it has been reported that there are reduced number of staffs working. This leads to poor customer services and fewer consumers will purchase from Walmart if it continues to have poor customer service. It will decrease their revenues for the company`s sales.

Thoughts and Opinions:

My opinion on this article is that it is unfair that the employees have had their hours being cut down. I do understand their frustration because it is wrong that Walmart is doing this to their employees. I feel that if they were going to cut down their hours in the first place, they should have not even raised the wages and should have left as regular so that they had their regular working hours. By paying them, and cutting hours, the employees really get no benefit and it is more of a loss to them because they are not making as much anyway. Overall, it is understandable the employees are angry and I feel that Walmart should compromise with their employees and reschedule them for regular working hours.

The 5 W's Breakdown:

Who: The WalMart Inc. and employees of Walmart.

What: Walmart cuts hours for their employees after increasing the wages.

When: They raised wages in April but starting cutting hours in June to August.

Where: This occurred in America (Houston, Texas).

Why: Walmart cuts down hours because they have increased wages and they have to pay less to employees if they work shorter shifts. The employees are outraged because they are not making enough because they have such low hours.

How: They spent 1 billion dollars on increasing the wages but they then cut down the hours for the workers and now many employees are jobless or barely have enough working hours.