首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy
admin
2013-01-12
65
问题
Is Wal-Mart going wobbly? Over the past couple of weeks, America’s largest company--linchpin of the low-wage, no-benefit economy that is increasingly the norm in America--has announced some surprising reversals of course. In a series of speeches and interviews, chief executive H. Lee Scott unveiled four initiatives that he clearly hopes will polish the company’s increasingly tarnished image. Wal-Mart, he said, will shift to more environmentally responsible practices--demanding better packaging of its products. It will offer more affordable health insurance to its employees, cutting the monthly premium in some cases to just $11. It will monitor the environmental and health and safety practices of its foreign suppliers. And it will lobby for a higher federal minimum wage.
Scott’s timing is anything but accidental. The sweatshop conditions in which thou-sands of employees of Wal-Mart’s suppliers routinely work, and the depressive effect that Wal-Mart has on working-class living standards here in the United States, are receiving increasing scrutiny--enough to impede the company’s growth. Wal-Mart’s at-tempts to open stores in the major cities of the Northeast and West Coast have been largely checked by a coalition of fearful and irate unions, smaller retailers, churches and liberal activists. Wal-Mart’s stock is down 13 percent this year. And worse is still to come. So the leopard realized it was time to change its spots-up to a point. Only 44 percent of Wal-Mart’s nearly 1. 3 million U.S. employees are covered under its health insurance plan. Now the company says it will make its insurance more affordable.
Of all Scott’s commitments, the one that does merit belief is his out-of-the-blue declaration of support for a higher minimum wage. For Wal-Mart is bumping up against a serious problem at least partly of its own making: Because it pitches its products to a disproportionately low-income client, its revenue rises and falls with the fortunes of the lower end of the American working class. And those fortunes these days are anything but bright. The coming crunch in heating oil prices, the decimation of American manufacturing, the steady decline of median family incomes over the past several years, the failure to raise the federal minimum wage since 1997--all these are combining to limit the ability of Wal-Mart shoppers to buy as much as they used to.
Wal-Mart, could, of course, raise its workers’ wages, but Scott has dismissed that out of hand. So now it’s the feds’ responsibility to rescue Wal-Mart from the consequences of the low-wage, low-consumption economy that Wal-Mart, with such fanatical devotion, has created. For, in Wal-Mart’s America, it’s not clear that even Wal-Mart can thrive.
The passage is intended to ______ .
选项
A、reveal the troubles Wal-Mart faces
B、call on a higher wage for workers
C、shift the Wal-Mart’s burden to feds
D、arouse public’s attention to economic crisis
答案
A
解析
整篇文章读下来都是讲沃尔玛所处的困境,中间提到了提高工资、有政府工作人员解救沃尔玛和经济危机,但那都不是中心思想,因此正确答案是A。
转载请注明原文地址:https://www.kaotiyun.com/show/Pw9O777K
0
考博英语
相关试题推荐
NearlytwothousandyearshavepassedsinceacensusdecreedbyCaesarAugustusbecamepartofthegreateststoryevertold.Man
NearlytwothousandyearshavepassedsinceacensusdecreedbyCaesarAugustusbecamepartofthegreateststoryevertold.Man
Atlastthegirlcouldn’tbeartheself-reproach,soshedecidedto______thefraudthatmadethepooroldladynopennyleft.
Theinstinctivefoundationoftheintellectuallifeiscuriosity,whichisfoundamonganimalsinitselementaryform.Intellige
Thequestionofwhetherwarisinevitableisonewhichhasconcernedmanyoftheworld’sgreatwriters.Beforeconsideringthis
AnewcatastrophefacesAfghanistan.TheAmericanbombingcampaignisconspiringwithyearsofcivilconflictanddroughttocre
Militaryordersare______andcannotbedisobeyed.
Indeed,______maydevelopinbehavioroccurringbetweendifferentspecies.
Lowbrowsarequite______tolethighbrowshavetheirsymphoniesandtheirRussiannovels.
Desertplants______twocategoriesaccordingtothewaytheydealwiththeproblemofsurvivingdrought.
随机试题
y=y(x)由ln(x+y)=exy确定,则x=0处的切线方程为______。
假性粒细胞减少症
关于前庭器官的叙述,下列哪项不正确?
下列哪项描述符合哮喘性支气管炎的表现特点()
患者,女性,46岁,闭经2月余,阴道淋漓出血20天,伴下腹隐痛和恶心呕吐到妇产科急诊室就诊。平素月经规律,既往无肿瘤家族病史。查体:BP145/90mmHg,HR98次/分。妇科检查:阴道内可见少量鲜血,宫颈光滑,子宫增大如孕3月大小,轻压痛,双附件区触
吸收合并,是指一个或一个以上的法人被另一个法人吸收,被吸收的法人失去法人资格,而吸收的法人并不失去法人资格。( )
盈利预测审核报告应对预测利润实现的可能性作出保证。( )
申请募集封闭式基金应提交的主要文件包括()
Mrs.Douglasunknowinglyleftapackage______ontheshopcounter.
下列关于法律意识的表述,能够成立的有()。(2011年多选49)
最新回复
(
0
)