Walmart associates and activist groups want the company to evaluate its policies, procedures and reporting. The Bentonville big dog seems to lack interest in budging.
The company’s 2024 proxy report, which aims to outline key information for shareholders as they vote on company matters and proposals, shows that shareholders have put forth different items they’d like the company to move on.
Four of those proposals have backing from various workers and non-profits, like Organization United for Respect, Majority Action and Americans for Financial Reform. Each of the four proposals endorsed by these groups calls upon Walmart to examine—and in some cases alter—its worker-related policies and procedures.
The retail mogul has recommended a vote against each and every one of those proposals, for a slew of different reasons. Shareholders will have the opportunity to vote on each proposal on June 5.
Proposal: Racial Equity Audit
The Organization United for Respect (UFR), a labor group, filed a proposal recommending that Walmart “conduct a third-party, independent racial equity audit analyzing [its] adverse impacts on Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) communities, and to provide recommendations for improving the company’s racial equity impact.”
According to Walmart data, people of color make up half of its U.S. workforce. 42 percent of its management associates and 29 percent of its officers are people of color.
At present, the company does not disclose median or mean pay information by gender or race, which UFR has clocked as a problem. In its opposition to the proposal, Walmart states that it has made a point of “conducting regular pay equity analyses, with our latest pay equity analyses in the U.S. confirming that…people of color are paid 1:1 (dollar for dollar) of the pay for white associates.”
But Bianca Agustin, co-executive director for UFR, said she harbors doubts about that assertion.
“[Based on] the lack of pay disclosure—and what we hear from associates—I firmly believe there is a pay gap between associates of color and white associates and that’s the reason they’re not sharing those numbers,” Agustin told Sourcing Journal.
TaNeka Hightower, a Walmart associate who has been with the company for six years, said her experience at the company has been less than stellar, partially due to how it handles race relations.
“Black and Brown people aren’t truly represented in the management roles within the company. Being an African-American woman with more than 15 years of management and retail experience, I find it extremely difficult to advance within Walmart, and over the course of my six years at this corporation, I see less and less people who look like me,” she said. “For decades, Walmart—run by America’s richest family—has been accused of exploiting Black workers like me through pay inequity, lack of diversity in management and boardrooms and meaningless [virtue] signaling. We’re fed up.”
UFR also submitted the proposal in 2023, and Walmart recommended that shareholders vote against the proposal, as it has done this year.
In its 2024 statement, Walmart maintained that “After further review and discussions with management, the board continues to believe that the company has effective mechanisms to assess and continuously improve its belonging, diversity, equity and inclusion strategies and practices.
Last year, the proposal received 18.1 percent of shareholder votes, according to Walmart.
Agustin said that she doesn’t expect UFR’s proposal to receive a majority vote—particularly given that the Walton family owns about 45 percent of the company’s shares. But UFR’s goal is to garner more than 20 percent of the votes, a threshold generally considered to warrant further discussion between a company and a proposal’s filer.
Proposal: Human Rights Impact Assessment Reporting
Activist organization Oxfam has called on Walmart to publish Human Rights Impact Assessments that dive deeper into its choices around high-risk commodities and operations in its supply chains and facilities.
In Walmart’s statement of opposition, it contends that what the proposal has requested is “unnecessary because…Walmart is already completing human rights impact assessments,” which it states are done by third-party experts.
Irit Tamir, director of Oxfam America’s private sector department, said that despite Walmart’s efforts, the company has not gone far enough in its reporting.
“Oxfam’s proposal pushes Walmart to finally commit to going beyond the bare minimum when it comes to identifying and remedying human rights abuses in its business operations and supply chains. Major retailers, including Walmart’s direct competitors, have already adopted robust HRIA mechanisms, but Walmart had [repeatedly] refused to do so until very recently. The little they have agreed to is entirely insufficient,” Tamir said.
A recent Oxfam report calls out the retailer for its “excessive” use of workplace surveillance in warehouses. Those findings, Tamir said, have the potential to affect investments in the company.
“Oxfam’s new report…documents the alarming health and safety outcomes of Walmart’s invasive use of worker surveillance technology, and this poses legitimate risk for investors,” she said. “It’s crucial that Walmart publishes any HRIA findings and makes them available to all company stakeholders.”
Oxfam submitted a similar proposal in 2023, which garnered 5.7 percent of shareholder votes.
Proposal: Compensation for Employees
The Shareholder Commons on behalf of Legal & General Investment Management America (LGIM America) put forth a proposal asking Walmart to establish wage policies that are “reasonably designed to provide workers with the minimum earnings necessary to meet a family’s basic needs.”
In January 2023, Walmart increased its in-store minimum hourly wage to $14, and it contends that the average starting wage for store associates came in at $15.75 per hour with an overall average of more than $17.50 per hour.
Nonetheless, the proposal calls for an increase that brings Walmart’s hourly minimum closer to $25.02, which MIT said would be the living wage per person for a family of four (two adults, two children).
The filers contend that increasing wages could actually increase profits for Walmart.
Walmart, in its opposition to the proposal, noted that it offers “strong pay and benefits” to its employees and stated that the company is “breaking down artificial barriers to advancement, including by removing degree requirements, and providing training and education to position associates to [help] move into [higher-paying] roles.”
LGIM America did not return Sourcing Journal’s request for comment on the proposal.
Proposal: Workplace Safety and Violence Review
Cyndi Murray, a founding member of UFR and a Walmart associate of 24 years, has refiled a proposal she submitted in 2023 about workplace safety and violence.
Her proposal asks Walmart to “conduct a third-party, independent review of the impact of company policies and practices on workplace safety and violence, including gun violence.”
Last year, the proposal garnered 23.8 percent of shareholders’ votes, but Walmart has recommended shareholders vote against it. Murray said she re-upped the proposal this year to continue drawing awareness to safety issues employees face in stores.
“They want to call us associates, not call us workers. Associates means equal partners—that, we are not in any way,” she told Sourcing Journal. “That’s why I continue to speak out, because there’s changes that they could make that wouldn’t cost [much] money, but would actually probably save more people’s lives. To me, if we save one person’s life, that’s a win for all of us.”
Walmart made the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health (COSH)’s “Dirty Dozen” list this year. It highlights 12 employers that National COSH believes to be endangering employees; Walmart is the only retailer on the list.
In its statement of opposition to Murray’s proposal, the company states that its board believes the company has policies in place to “promote the health, safety and security of [its] customers.”
Walmart pointed to tactics like training on workplace violence, coordination with law enforcement, risk identification technology and more.
Murray said she has not seen the effect of the types of programs Walmart mentioned in its opposition. She said she feels that Walmart leadership continues to fail its employees, without ever seeing or truly understanding the scope of the issues they face on a day-to-day basis.
“Our CEO, he’s sitting in a plush office, safe, while we’re all out here on the front line every day, dealing with aggressive people. You don’t know what they’re going to do to you,” she said. “Anytime we make a proposal, what they say is…’Don’t vote for anything the [workers] put out there.’ It’s just a repetition for them to keep saying things like that instead of really getting to the heart of the matter. Listen to your associates. They are the ones that work in these stores across the country every day.”
Walmart declined to comment further on the shareholder proposals, instead referring Sourcing Journal to what it had written in its 2024 proxy statement.
