Business Dispute
The nature of disputes in business is varied and in some instances they come because of the wrong performance of people. Let us take the case of Mr. Coughlin who retired from Wal-Mart in January finally gave his resignation from the board of directors on March 25th. According to Wal-Mart there was a pattern of expenses account abuses by him, as also the use of incorrect invoices for getting reimbursement of expenses. This action has been accompanied by the sacking of a few other employees also. The investigation into the matter is being carried by the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Arkansas. The matter is also being investigated by Wall Street Journal and they feel that Mr. Coughlin often forced his subordinates to create false bills so that he could get payments for his personal expenses from Wall-Mart. He is now 55 years old and this mode of working has been used by him for more than 5 years and got him payment for hunting vacations, a $1,359 pair of alligator skin boots tailor made for him, as also a $2,590 dog pen for his house. This activity is certainly not expected from a person of the stature of Mr. Coughlin who had earned over $6 million during last year. (Bandler; Zimmerman, 2005)
According to statements released by Wal-Mart the total of such deals entered by Mr. Coughlin is between $100,000 and $500,000. A lot of these activities were centered on the "union project" being handled by the executive. The statement made by Mr. Coughlin to some other fellow employees of Wal-Mart was that the money was required for enticing some employees of Wal-Mart to talk about the activities within the union. The concerned invoices were claimed to be fake but was a method of compensating him for the expenses that he had incurred for paying the concerned employees to talk on...
These are all compensations for out of pocket expenses, he claimed. Again paying union leaders for collecting information is a criminal offense as per the existing laws -- under the federal Taft-Hartley Act. This would again bring into question the anti-labor policies being followed by the organization which has been under a cloud for some time. The anti-labor attitude of Wal-Mart has been quite clear since the time the company has been run by Mr. Walton, and that was in 1962. This attitude to labor has given the entire retail industry a very poor image with regard to the retail industry. They have all had to compete with Wal-Mart in prices and that has not been easy. (Bandler; Zimmerman, 2005)
Now let us look at the question of how this rock bottom price is being maintained. Take the case of a gallon-sized jar of whole pickles. This looks almost like an aquarium filled by fat, green pickles. They float within the juice and their shapes are changed by the glass surrounding them. The weight is high - 12 pounds and one cannot carry it with one hand. This entire show is of abundance and is a show of excess, unlikely to be used by the household. Yet the product is an item that Wal-Mart loves and this is called Vlasic's gallon jar of pickles. Certainly the selling of the product is a service by Wal-Mart is a help to their customer, if the customers can use the product as their prices are lower than the price for a quart by most other grocers in the country. At the same time, was it a service for Vlasic? They had spent a number of years getting into the market and establishing their own brand name so that they could get a higher price from the customers. When they started selling from Wal-Mart, it seemed as if they were giving them free. This price led to a lot of purchases from Wal-Mart…
