Two years ago, many Walmart employees in the States stepped forward saying they were being treated unethically. The employees said there was discrimination, very low pay and bad working hours in their workforce. Back in 2011, one hundred employees involved in the Organization United for Respect (OUR Walmart) sat face-to-face with representatives from Scandinavian funds and others to explain their issues regarding fair pay and work hours. Last week, Sweden’s largest state-backed pension funds (worth a combined 140 billion dollars) finally decided to dump their Walmart stock on the advice of the country’s Ethical Council, which described ‘systematic abuses of workers’ rights’ as the main motivation. Other reasons for letting go of the stock included corruption allegations and people getting hurt on the job.
This is definitely one way to let Walmart know that what they’re doing isn’t right. However, instead of this Swedish company completely removing themselves from Walmart, perhaps the smarter way to do it is to stay with the stock and in the company. That way as a shareholder, you have more of a say in what goes on at Walmart then if you let go of your stock. The Swedish Company could have kept their stock and continued to stick up for workers’ rights by pressuring Walmart to change their unethical behaviour.