The ill-treatment of Wal-Mart employees was brought up in a blog by Yash Multani, discussing the recent strikes of the employees attempting to receive higher wages. As it is clearly a human resources issue, this reminded me of another recent strike in Vancouver at another big-brand department company, Ikea. Earlier in the summer, Ikea workers went on strike as they felt wages were unfair, unequal, and inadequate for the amount of work and hours they put in. With over 300 workers on strike, Ikea employees refused to continue work until acceptable pay was introduced. As both these businesses are relatively large, well-known enterprises, customer service would be affected greatly by a lack of employees in the stores. It is clear that human resources is an essential segment of these large corporations as the employees hold a significant influence in the production and image of the company. Again, this is an issue of business ethics when looking at how to treat workers in their environment. These big companies should be able to afford an increase in wages in order to ensure that the company as a whole is able to continue to prosper and develop. Perhaps, in fact, this becomes an issue of their workers’ drive and desire to work in such an environment and what these corporations can do to increase worker incentive.

Yash Multani’s Post: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yashmultani/2013/11/15/wal-mart-workers-protest/

Original Article: BREAKING: Wal-Mart Workers Strike: http://www.salon.com/2013/11/12/breaking_wal_mart_workers_strike_as_target_workers_threaten_to_join_black_friday_walkout/

Talks Break Down Between Ikea and Striking Workers: http://www.vancouversun.com/business/Talks+break+down+between+Ikea+striking+workers/8760537/story.html