The Wal-Mart Effect: How the World's Most Powerful Company Really Works - and How It's Transforming the American Economy

Fishman likens the Wal-Mart effect to a ship moving across the horizon and creating waves in the water. He returns to his descriptions of the corporation’s impact on the L. R. Nelson sprinkler company. In 2005, Nelson’s president Dave Eglinton gave a public address about Wal-Mart’s influence on his company’s layoffs and outsourcing. Shortly thereafter, Fishman interviewed five former Nelson employees about their experience working for Nelson over the course of their careers. The employees included Sally Stone, Mary Fail, Rose Dunbar, Terri Graham, and Vickie Black, all of whose accounts offered firsthand insight into the Wal-Mart effect (250).

Stone, Graham, and Dunbar told Fishman about their positive experiences making sprinklers during their time with Nelson. They supported Nelson’s mission and believed the company had strong, American values (251). When Nelson began selling to Wal-Mart, however, the women noticed that they were using cheaper materials in production. The tubes and jets were of particularly low quality and caused malfunctions in the final products. Meanwhile, the women stopped enjoying their time at Nelson. Dunbar, Stone, and Black particularly started to dislike going into work, and they feared losing their jobs beginning in 2002 when Nelson started shipping jobs overseas to China.