Two sides to Walmart?

Laura and Jim are a couple who go from Las Vegas to Georgia in an RV and blog about their journey. Being a mobile home, they need somewhere to park their RV when they need a break from driving or want to go to sleep. Walmart allows them to park in their lots for free.

"Every Wal-Mart employee that Laura and Jim run into, from store clerks to photogenic executives, absolutely loves to work at the store" (Pallavi).

Isn't that a breath of fresh air to see that after reading an article where Liza Fetherstone describes Walmart's conduct to it's employees as,

"Firing whistle blowers. Discriminating against women (and, most recently, black truck drivers). Violating child labor laws. Locking workers into stores overnight. Mooching off tax payers. Disregarding local zoning laws. Mistreating immigrant janitors. Abusing young Bangladeshi women. Paying poverty-level wages in the United States. Destroying small town America".

What are we to believe? The alligations made by Liza Fetherstone are so harsh that we can only think that the story of Jim and Laura is just a stunt conjured up by Walmart. Johnathan Reese goes to saying, "Walmart hired fake people". Truth is that Jim and Laura are indeed real people but the public is being told the HALF truth in their story. Although, it is very cute to think that Walmart helped this couple a great deal and welcomed them with open arms we can't be fooled.

"Wake Up, Walmart" is a website dedicated to changing the company for the better. With Walmart being such a part of the retail economy despite such vicious things being said about the company it is necessary for them to repair it's image greatly.

Sources:

Lisa Featherstone, "Wal-Mart's P.R. war," Salon, 2005.

Pallavi Gogoi, "Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story," BW, 2006.