Will Wal-Mart's lower benefits set pace?

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-031006walmart,1,1969435.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is famous for cutting costs everywhere it can.

Today, a giant target for the world's biggest retailer is the health-care costs of its employees.

Wal-Mart, based in Bentonville, Ark., makes new hourly workers wait six months to sign up for its benefits plan and doesn't cover retirees at all. Its deductibles range as high as $1,000, triple the norm. It refuses to pay for flu shots, eye exams, child vaccinations, chiropractic services and numerous other treatments allowed by many other companies.

In many cases, it won't pay for treatment of pre-existing conditions in the first year of coverage.

The payoff: Last year, average spending on health benefits for each of the company's roughly 500,000 covered employees was $3,500, almost 40 percent less than the average for all U.S. corporations and 30 percent less than the rest of the wholesale-retail industry, according to estimates by Mercer Human Resource Consulting, a unit of Marsh & McLennan Cos.

[GainesT1958]

1. If THIS Labor Department had its way...

You bet it would be! :mad:

Funny how they're so concerned with providing affordable health care for all IRAQIS...but NOT for all AMERICANS!:grr:

B-)

[twilight]

3. Iraq already had healthcare

Before the USA invaded Iraq, all Iraqis had heathcare under Saddam's regime. Too bad this FACT doesn't get more exposure. Now they have no health care in Iraq thanks to America. Saddam's regime was providing full coverage and the USA must now rebuild what was already there.

In any event, the Walmart sceanrio is atypical ... this is what we are forced to accept in these times like it or not.

I agree, if we must provide healthcare for all Iraqis (even though they had it before our invasion), we should and MUST provide it for the American people!!!

In the meantime, consider this man for our next President - he has a great proposal for healthcare for all in America!

DENNIS KUCINICH FOR PRESIDENT IN 2004!! :D

:kick:

[jiacinto]

4. Are you defending Saddam Hussein?

nt

[twilight]

5. no, I am not defending Saddam Hussein

I am stating a fact that seems to have "slipped" through the holes, that is all. The Iraqi people HAD full healthcare under his regime and now it seems they have little if none. Maybe the invasion plan should have been given just a BIT more thought! :grr:

Great job we've done isn't it?

:kick:

[benfranklin1776]

9. I wholly agree with you.

In no way should your statement of a plainly apparent fact be misconstrued as a defense of Saddam Hussein. Your meaning was perfectly clear.

[saigon68]

17. WALMART = RED CHINA'S RETAIL OUTLET

As a union person in the know, I can tell you Walmart uses the Govt of China to produce 75% of its stuff. They use slave labor, prisoners and 10 year old children.

There is no minimum wage, little workplace safety, and no benefits. They want to turn the USA into a 2 class society. (like Mexico)

The 10 year old children in Bangladesh (before China got the contract)used to sew made in the USA tags into their shirts. They are like the Pharaoh of Egypt in Moses time.

They are retail hoodlums and exploiters of human beings they are scum.

[jiacinto]

2. That sucks

It really does. I can understand the six month waiting period, though. As retail is such a high turnover industry many people leave well before then. Othewise this sucks.

[criticalmass]

6. American workers are too expensive

They want to be paid too much and they expect too many benefits. That's why there are less of them every day.

Compare what Wal-Mart's doing with what's going on with a strike against Tyson's pay and benefit cuts in Jefferson, WI. From Dollars & Sense:

"We’re not pleading poverty," says Ken Kimbro, Tyson’s senior vice president for human resources. "We’re not saying the Jefferson facility is losing money. We’re saying the cost in Jefferson is out of line and we have to make adjustments." In fact, a closer look reveals a highly profitable corporation that has built an empire in a notoriously dangerous, low-paying industry, and now wants to extend its influence into traditionally unionized sectors.

Okay, you know Tyson's labor record (or should). If you read the article, it's painfully obvious that Tyson would just as soon ditch the current staff so they can fill those jobs with immigrant labor that is much cheaper and much less likely to complain about working conditions.

Methinks Wally World's on the same track, along with the rest of Corporate America. If they can't offshore the jobs entirely, immigrant labor, legal or otherwise, is the most profitable way to go, and the American worker and the US economy can just go screw themselves.

[eyesroll]

7. Jefferson's really being hammered by the strike, too..

It's a city of about 4,000, and 400 of them are on strike. Only three defectors, though. Apparently, that plant had been in operation for decades, and was only recently bought by Tyson. This is the first labor action ever at that plant.

I've been to a couple of their union rallies. They really do take care of their own.

The one truly good photo I've ever taken with a digital camera came from a Tyson strike rally. A little girl, looking resigned and tired, balancing a picket sign that was as big as she was. It was pretty sad.

[northernsoul]

35. race to the bottom

pretty soon we'll all going to have to settle to working 18 hour shifts in exchange for a bowl of gruel and a flea-infested bunk in somed cramped shanty in order to remain "competitive"

and here I thought we'd abolished slavery...

[TreasonousBastard]

8. They're not alone.

Everyone is looking to cut benefit costs. They've already hit pensions, and health care is the next big cost.

It sickens me to think this way, but maybe we have to let them have their way. Hundreds of thousands of sick and dying in the streets may be the only way to get someone's attention to the problem.

Respond only to a crisis-- it's the American way.

[UnapologeticLiberal]

10. I am torn on this

On the one hand, it sucks that they don't have a good benefits plan. On the other hand, if they were to make the plan more lavish, prices would go up, and WalMart provides affordable goods at better prices than most other stores, making things more affordable for middle and lower income people. It is so hard to be pro-labor and pro-consumer, because the two seem to always be at odds.

Mousepads, Shoe Leather, and Hope

[bleedingheart]

11. You pay for it anyways... you see when Wal-Mart doesn't pay

its employees enough or give them adequate benefits those same employees are then eligble for Government benefits..either state or federal.

As more people like them qualify for benefits... the more you pay in taxes to help cover them.... just so people can get cheap stuff at Wal-Mart.

[benfranklin1776]

14. Right and this is not an issue of granting new benefits but it is a

...case of restricting and eliminating benefits which already exist which is what is going on all over the country. The consumer will see none of the benefit in terms of reduced prices. Any savings will go solely to increased corporate profits which in their case are already rapacious.

How much is enough for these people? It is never enough. If they could repeal the thirteenth amendment to cut costs they certainly would. Amazing how it was possible at one time for a company to pay its workers a decent wage, and benefits and still make a profit such as, for example, Nike in the seventies. They then decided that "well hell's bells its easier to go to sweatshop tolerant countries" and "cut their labor costs." This increased their profitability but there has been no price reduction for the consumer as the price of Air Jordan's reflect. Such is the case for all companies that have stampeded to follow suit in the race to the bottom. All of these companies have forgotten Henry Ford's basic maxim: If you want workers to buy your products you have to pay them enough to afford them.

I say it is high time for national health care financed by a tax on these companies and a tariff on imported goods. This way the benefits cannot be reduced capriciously and arbitarily and workers will not have to worry about they and their families getting sick and facing the horror of not being able to be get life saving treatment simply because they have the misfortune of working a minimum wage job.

[bleedingheart]

15. You said it far more eloquently that I did!

I like that Ford maxim! So very true!

[benfranklin1776]

18. Yes and it is one which is forgotten in today's maximize profit

at all costs ethos. Its not just making a profit which is enough but an ever increasing profit margin that is the holy grail. Stable growth is looked on with disdain. High rates of profit "growth" even if artificially induced by taking an axe to staff and wages is the ultimate goal. The worker is now wholly expendable to today's multinationals and treated as a commodity the price of which is to be reduced to a vanishing point. As long as the cheap labor pool is available they will move production from country to country to get a better deal. This is why labor and environmental standards in trade agreements are a must to discourage this relentless race to the bottom.

[bleedingheart]

12. I work for a big company..(fortune 500 big)... and

my company is planning on having us be self-insured in about three years...

It is the way of the future...

Self-pay for a family of four is now running around $800 a month in my area...

[nbsmom]

32. Self-insured?

For groups of employees, self-insuring is usually a good thing...it usually means that you're not paying a humongous amount of markup to a health plan, but instead the group keeps its money and pays someone to administer the claims.

If done correctly, a self-insured group would actually be able to save some $$ and hold off having to cut benefits.

Would you mind describing what it is that you're talking about?

[AWD]

13. It already has....

...I work for Clear Channel, and they're making us pay more for health care and the co-pays also go up (some are doubled).

[DuctapeFatwa]

16. It is the free market at work! The American way of life!

If the workers don't like Wal-Mart's terms, they can work somewhere else. For every worker who wants to leave, there are plenty of people waiting to take their place - people who know good and well they can't afford medical care and to whom it has never occurred that they might ever get any.

Frankly, the cost of health care and medical treatment for a low wage worker is usually higher than the life insurance benefit, and it is certainly higher than hiring and training a replacement, of which there is an abundant supply, which will only increase as more tech jobs are outsourced and that demographic's savings run out.

If there is nowhere else to work in that community, each worker has the right to start their own company to compete with Wal-Mart, or move to another community, or work at Wal-Mart and save all their money so they can afford to do one of those things.

[reprobate]

20. You were being sarcastic, weren't you?

You should state so clearly in your post. Some might think that you were serious.

Unfortunatly it is just that outlook by the repacious repugs that is driving our economy into the ground. Workers must make a wage to afford to buy the things they make. Ford was right. Wha we are seeing now is the result of bean counters running the corporations, instead of the people who are involved with making the product.

[DuctapeFatwa]

23. No, I am not. This is the reality. Have you ever gone to a new restaurant

and ordered something without really looking at the menu, or thinking it over?

In my previous post, I described a reality of the American economic system. This reality reflects the choice of the affluent voting classes.

It is what they ordered.

Right now, in the kitchen, cooks are busily preparing their order.

Soon the plate will arrive at the table.

I am sorry I cannot be more optimistic about the chances for a political solution at this point.

[bleedingheart]

24. ...been there...done it... now re-living it again

"If the workers don't like Wal-Mart's terms, they can work somewhere else. For every worker who wants to leave, there are plenty of people waiting to take their place - people who know good and well they can't afford medical care and to whom it has never occurred that they might ever get any."

The same was said of the immigrants who worked the steel mills and coal mines of Pittsburgh.... but eventually there just aren't enough jobs and people get tired of it and they unionize or organize in another fashion.

Wal-Mart's will have its comeuppence yet.. when you are the only game in town eventually the people will get tired of your crap....and that is what I expect will happen with Wal-Mart.

[happyslug]

28. I agree

But to do so the situation will have to get worse, i.e. workers will have to accept that to gain something they will have to fight for it i.e. organize and strike. Walmart will fight such unionization with everything it can, legal and illegal. The workers will have to accept those terms as terms of the fight and be prepared to protest everywhere.

Also workers NOT employed by Walmart will have to support the walmart workers with money AND not taking the jobs at Walmart as scabs, even if that means continued unemployment. I see a long fight on our hands.

[DuctapeFatwa]

29. wish I could be more optimistic about the chances for a political solution

But I'm afraid the situation has gotten too extreme - feudalism is just too profitable, and the country - and its politics - are about profit.

The free market price of a day's work has now fallen below the free market price of a day's survival.

[schultzee]

19. Ripped off, spit on, American workers are abandoned by the pigs

running the country.

[peterh]

21. Yeah…unfortunately, that is the current trend.

With the advent of the “big box”, smaller competitors simply can’t compete and in a climate of high unemployment, the employer gets to set the rules and when your salary starts going to items previously covered, well, you’re more likely to shop, and often, at a big box….which plays right into a Wal-mart strategy.

It’s also the repug strategy to move these costs from the employer to the employee. For small business owners (mostly repugs) who are crying for help to compete, they’ve been lobbying and giving money to have this happen. What they seem to fail to grasp, is the fact that through continued consolidation in just about every industry, they’re not going to last anyway.

It’s unfortunate that the business cycle has to endure this, but when a worker-bee votes repug or doesn’t vote at all…their complaints ring hollow.

[schultzee]

22. I already boycott these crooks. I wish everyone did.

[Selwynn]

25. I despise Wal-Mart with ever fiber of my being

:mad: :argh: :grr: :nuke: :puke:

[Karmadillo]

26. Are there any Democratic Presidential candidates who might lead

the fight against this sort of thing?

[Romberry]

27. Yep.

Howard Dean. He is calling for fair trade as opposed to unfettered "free trade" that ships jobs offshore to nations which allow megacorporations to pollute without significant restrictions and that pay their employees pennies.

Amercians can compete with anyone on a level playing field. Dean's position is that the way to level the field is to raise the rest of the world up, not drag Americans down. The rush to the bottom must be stopped.

[juajen]

31. Absolutely,

His name is DENNIS KUCINICH. Go to his website. He is very much pro-union and eliminating NAFTA and anything else that will get this country rolling again. He is the only "Paul Wellstone" in this race.

[Kitsune]

30. I cannot wait until someone manages to start a union at Wal-Mart

I will cry tears of joy when it happens.

[area51]

33. wave of the future

At the previous small company I worked for, employees were not given any paid holidays, & there were no medical bennies. I fear this is the wave of the future in the USA, unless something drastic is done. It's an obscenity that people can become bankrupt because medical care costs are through the roof, & our tax $$ aren't going to pay for some sort of single-payer plan.

[nbsmom]

34. What did you do for health care coverage?

And is no paid holidays legal in small companies?