When Susan Mediger-Paul went into labor in 1995 and gave birth prematurely to her third child, she knew the health insurance provided by her employer would not cover the cost. Nor would it pay for the birth of her fourth and fifth child later on, in 1998 and 1999. She said she relied on Minnesota Care, the state's public assistance healthcare, to pay for the multiple hospitalizations of her children, two of whom suffered from asthma.
Mediger-Paul seems an unlikely candidate for public assistance healthcare. She held a good-paying job as an accountant at Wal- Mart, the infamously profitable company and the largest private sector employer in the nation.
So why was Mediger-Paul on the dole?
Because 'Wal-Mart's health insurance was awful!' she says. Mediger-Paul opted out of the company health plan, she says, to pay into the state healthcare system. 'I had two preemies and they both had asthma--there was no way I would have made it on Wal- Mart's insurance.' With cheap premiums but large deductibles and gaps in care, she says the Wal-Mart insurance wouldn't even have covered her kids' vaccinations.
Mediger-Paul is in good company as she complains about the inadequacy of Wal-Mart's healthcare. This week, in an attempt to hold large employers accountable for their worker's healthcare costs, Senators Ted Kennedy (D-Ma.), Jon Corzine (D-NJ) and Representative Anthony Weiner (D-NY) introduced the Health Care Accountability Act. Originally authored by the union-backed Wake- Up Wal-Mart campaign, the legislation would require states to publicly report the number of employees that companies have on taxpayer-funded public health care. These annual reports would include the state's cost of providing healthcare to those workers.
'We deserve to know the truth about the high cost of Wal-Mart's greed,' says Paul Blank, the campaign director for Wake-Up Wal- Mart.
Mediger-Paul's home state of Minnesota has been debating similar legislation, which is set to pass by the end of the month. Additionally, 23 other state legislatures have recently debated or passed these so-called 'Wal-Mart bills.' Some states have moved even further, considering 'pay or play' legislation that would force large employers to either commit a certain percent of payroll costs to employee healthcare, or pay into the state healthcare system.
The idea, say supporters of the legislation, is to stop subsidizing corporate profits with public healthcare money.
The Wal-Mart bills have been sponsored by a number of state lawmakers interested in universal healthcare, but labor organizers have honed in specifically and vocally on Wal-Mart. The legislation has stirred up a vitriolic fight between a labor movement trying to stay relevant in a service and retail economy and Wal-Mart, a profiteering giant that relies on cheap labor and would rather shut a store down than see it unionized. At the core of the debate is a difference in opinion over what is considered adequate, and who is ultimately responsible for the healthcare needs of low-wage workers.
'I believe every worker should have healthcare provided by the employer. It should be a right,' says Bernie Hesse, director of organizing for United Food and Commercial Workers Local 789 in Minnesota. He also believes that part of the way to get there is to create a public education campaign against Wal-Mart, exposing 'what a shitty place it is and how bad they treat people.'
Nate Hurst, Wal-Mart's public and government relations manager, says Wal-Mart is living up to its responsibility, emphasizing that his company does provide health insurance that has saved lives. As for any snags in affordability or coverage, he implies that the whole healthcare system is at fault. 'We certainly believe it's long past time for meaningful reform for our healthcare in this country, but these bills do not address these concerns, nor do they even ensure that one more person comes off the list of America's uninsured.'
What the state legislation (and now the proposed federal legislation) has done is shine a light on the reality of people receiving public assistance healthcare, many of whom are gainfully employed and even have access to health insurance, but simply cannot afford it. Even when companies like Wal-Mart offer comparatively cheap health insurance premiums, the expense is still a major chunk of change for workers making less than $10 per hour on average. And even with health insurance, the deductibles, which range from $350 to $1,000 for a single person, make a doctor's visit a budget-buster.
In a 2005 report, Union Network International criticized the disconnect between the retail giant's health plan and the reality of the low-wage workers it was being offered to: 'A single Wal-Mart shop worker could end up paying about 45% of her or his salary before seeing a single benefit from participating in the scheme.'
And that's only for the workers who are eligible. There is a six-month waiting period for full-time employees to become eligible for coverage, and a two-year waiting period for part-time employees, whose dependents are never eligible for coverage under Wal- Mart's health insurance plan. (Anyone who works less than 34 hours per week is considered part-time.)
Wal-Mart reports that 47 percent of its 1.2 million employees are covered through the company health insurance, saying that many more are covered elsewhere, through other family members or retirement plans. Critics assert that most other large employers insure about 66 percent of their workforce, and use this number as proof of the inadequacy of Wal-Mart's health coverage. "Wal- Mart has led this kind of healthcare cost shift," says Blank. 'They provide such inadequate healthcare with high premiums and, combined with poverty level wages, that leads tens of thousands of their employees to public assistance healthcare.'
The scrutiny of Wal-Mart's health coverage began a couple years ago when Medicaid costs and health insurance premiums were skyrocketing. Universities and unions produced a number of reports that highlighted the cost of public assistance for Wal-Mart workers who received welfare, food stamps, public health care, and the like. In October 2003, the AFL-CIO released a pointed attack on the mega-store with its report 'Wal-Mart: An Example of Why Workers Remain Uninsured and Underinsured,' which blamed the company's penny-pinching health insurance package for skewing the market negatively.
With fewer than half its employees covered under plans that often had high deductibles and gaps in care, the report argued, Wal- Mart saved money and made it difficult for other retailers to provide decent health insurance and still remain competitive. In 2004, a UC-Berkeley study reported that the state's Wal-Mart workers and their dependents received $86 million in public assistance, including healthcare, welfare and free school lunch programs.
But it wasn't just professors and unions attacking the mega-store; U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-Ca.) released a report in February 2004 criticizing the breadth of Wal-Mart's policies, from discrimination to low wages and poor health insurance. The report, titled 'Everyday Low Wages: The Hidden Price We All Pay for Wal-Mart,' called the retailer the 'lowest common denominator in the treatment of working people.' It compared Wal-Mart to other companies, finding that it spent considerably less money on healthcare per employee. It pointed out that while Wal-Mart can boast it covers many catastrophic illnesses and does not have a lifetime cap on benefits like some other plans do, the healthcare is far from comprehensive. For example, the report noted that 'routine medical needs' are often not covered, while rare organ transplants are covered.
The realization that thousands of low-wage employees from Wal-Mart and other big corporations might be the ones cramming Medicaid offices around the country made many lawmakers balk. Georgia was the first state to take action, passing a bill that required public reporting of employers for all those enrolled in the state healthcare system. When the numbers were tallied earlier this year, it was little surprise that Wal-Mart topped the list, with more than 10,000 children of its workers receiving public healthcare. Out of the 13 states that have gathered similar data, Wal-Mart has topped the list of 12.
Wal-Mart spokesmen have fended off these critiques, saying that it may end up at the top of any list simply because it has so many employees. They are quick to remind the public that Wal-Mart will create 100,000 jobs this year, and that 160,000 people who didn't have health insurance previously now have it through their coverage. 'The question to ask is 'where would they be without Wal-Mart?' We help insure over 900,000 Americans [which includes employees' dependents]. If all of a sudden we stopped doing that, where would we be?' asks Hurst. He chalks up the intense criticism to self-interested unions attempting to publicly smear their arch-enemy. While this response may miss the point, it is not incorrect.
Frustrated unions that have largely given up on attempts to organize individual Wal-Mart stores have shifted gears by forming a grassroots political movement focused on legislation. In April, United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been unsuccessful in its traditional attempts to organize stores for the better part of a decade, launched its Wake-Up Wal-Mart Campaign. Already touting one major success with the introduction of the Healthcare Accountability Act, the campaign is calling for legislation in all 50 states that would force large employers to pay a minimum of 10 percent of payroll costs toward employee healthcare. The proposed legislation follows a 'pay or play' Maryland bill that was passed, but later vetoed by the governor.
'This type of grassroots organizing marks a shift into a broader social justice campaign,' said Blank. "It points out not only the incredibly bad things Wal-Mart does to their workers--like making them work off the clock, locking them in the stores, discriminating against women--it also builds a national grassroots project based on all those things that have been negatively affected by Wal-Mart's greed." Already boasting 10,000 people onboard the campaign, Wake-Up Wal-Mart held 325 supporter meetings this month and, on June 23rd, kicked off a series of house parties to spread support for the campaign.
Other union-backed campaigns focusing on legislation include the Change to Win Coalition, which declares one of its three goals to 'Stop the Wal-Marting of good jobs in America,' and Wal-Mart Watch, which has bombarded the media with criticism of the company's policies.
Wal-Mart, by its sheer size, is a leader that sets an example in the retail industry. The activist groups, which are proudly union-supported, feel they need to hold corporate America's feet to the flames, if not by organizing unions, then by passing legislation. 'You're up against Goliath and sooner or later we're going to slay that dragon,' said Hesse, the Minnesota UFCW organizer. 'I'm not absolving us from organizing the workers, but given the present-day climate, we are going to have to figure out many different attacks on Wal-Mart.'
As for the fate of the new Health Care Accountability Act that would produce lists of companies that have 50 or more employees receiving public assistance healthcare, Mediger-Paul just laughs. 'Do I think Wal-Mart will be on that list? Yes. I could name 50 people in each store [in Minnesota] that are on public assistance. I could name 20 full-time employees right now who are on medical assistance.'
Maria Luisa Tucker is a freelance journalist based in New York. Her work has appeared in the Santa Fe Reporter, Phoenix New Times, and Austin Monthly magazine.
Today, Senator Kennedy, Senator Corzine and Congressman Anthony Weiner will hold a press conference with Joe Hansen, President of the United Food & Commercial Workers announcing the introduction of the Health Care Accountability Act (HCAA). The Act will help determine the extent to which taxpayers are subsidizing the health care costs of our nation's largest employers. Most importantly, this legislation marks the beginning of our campaign to make Wal-Mart pay its fair share for health care.
The power you have to change Wal-Mart and hold large, profitable corporations accountable is amazing. Last week, Wal-Mart announced it is hiring 14 new high-priced lobbyists to counter your efforts. But, here's the truth! No amount of money can ever compete with the American people.
Only you have the power to stop Wal-Mart's greed. Please help us build our citizens army to change Wal-Mart. We need you to sign up 10 people today to become Citizen Co-Sponsors of our Fair Share for Health Care campaign:
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/health-legislative.html
Wal-Mart's power is its profits. Our power is the American people. The American people shouldn't have to pay up to $2.5 billion a year to subsidize the largest corporation in the world. The American people shouldn't have to pay more than $200 million and counting for Wal-Mart's failure to provide health care.
Instead of being embarrassed, Wal-Mart arrogantly brags that most state public health care programs offer "a better value" than Wal-Mart's health care. What a shame. But Wal-Mart's abuse of our health care system isn't going to change unless we join together and do something about it.
Please help us build a citizens army to change Wal-Mart. We need you to sign up 10 people today to become Citizen Co-Sponsors of our campaign to Make Wal-Mart Care About Health Care:
http://www.wakeupwalmart.com/feature/health-legislative.html On behalf of the American people, with your help, we will change Wal-Mart and change America.
Wake-Up Wal-Mart's "Make Wal-Mart Care About Health Care" Campaign Helps Sponsor the "Health Care Accountability Act" to Hold Wal-Mart Accountable
On Wednesday, June 22, at 1:45 p.m., Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Jon Corzine (news, bio, voting record) and Rep. Anthony Weiner (news, bio, voting record) will hold a press conference to announce the introduction of the Health Care Accountability Act (HCAA).
The HCAA will expose a growing and costly national problem of large profitable companies, like Wal-Mart, shifting their health care costs onto taxpayers. Wal-Mart's relentless pursuit of corporate greed has come at a high price for their workers health care. More than 600,000 Wal-Mart workers are not covered by the company's health care plan. Poverty level wages combined with high deductibles, costly premiums and strict eligibility requirements force tens of thousands of Wal-Mart's workers, spouses and dependents onto public health care programs designed for needy families and children.
HCAA will require states to disclose which employers have a high number of employees on public health care assistance, like Medicaid. The Bill will also help determine the extent to which taxpayers are subsidizing the health care costs of large, profitable corporations, like Wal-Mart.
WASHINGTON -- The following is a statement by Joe Hansen, International President of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, at the 'Change To Win' Coalition meeting:
Yesterday, the International Executive Board of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) unanimously endorsed a reform proposal to restructure the AFL- CIO, and to revitalize the labor movement.
Today, we join with some of the largest and most dynamic unions in the labor movement in a coalition for change.
These actions reflect the UFCW's commitment to build a 21st century labor movement that can bring hope, and a plan of action for a better life, to a new generation of workers. We recognize that today's realities-a new global economy, unrestrained corporate power, hostile government-present a formidable challenge to our movement. But, we must always remember that from our greatest challenges come our greatest accomplishments.
Labor in the 20th century stood at its lowest point in the 1930s. But, at our lowest point, we also stood on the verge of our greatest growth, our greatest strength and our greatest impact on the economy and society. From the depths of economic depression in 1935, we rose, within 20 years, to our largest percentage of the workforce, and we created the working middle class.
Today's workers face the steady erosion of their power in the workplace, in the economy and in the political process. Rising profits, increasing productivity and a growing economy have not brought rising wages, better benefits, or economic security. There is a power imbalance between workers and the giant corporations that dominate the world economy.
The UFCW and our coalition partners are committed to redressing this imbalance, and to rebuilding worker power.
The current AFL-CIO administration asserts that there is little difference between our reform agenda and their AFL-CIO Officers' Proposal.
There are profound differences in our visions for the future for America's workers. We believe in organizing, not simply for more members, but in organizing to build worker power. The foundation of worker power is in increasing the number of union workers in an industry or occupation. Our proposals specifically direct resources to organizing in a union's core industries. Our proposal provides for a leadership structure that promotes diversity and full participation and gives authority to the affiliates representing the majority of members.
Rebuilding worker power will give workers the hope for a better future. Workers with hope will organize, they will stand up, they will act in solidarity at work, in the community and in the political process. The starting point for our new movement to rebuild worker power is here, and it starts with us. This is the beginning.
We are going forward to bring a platform for change to the AFL-CIO convention. We will engage all other unions in a dialogue for change. Our purpose is not to divide, but to unite unions in a dynamic new movement for today's workers.
The unions you see here are the unions representing the emerging 21st century workforce -- young people, women, minorities, new immigrants and older workers forced to extend their work lives. From hospitality to retail to services, and from health care to transportation to construction, our unions are fighting the battles, confronting the employers and organizing the workers that are the future in America.
Yesterday, the UFCW Board also authorized the executive officers to disaffiliate from the AFL-CIO. This action was not taken lightly. We are committed to a united, reformed labor movement. But, the status quo will not stand. We will not be chained to the past, our obligation is to the future of our members.
As I said, in the 1930s, we were at our lowest point, but also on the verge of our greatest accomplishments. When the CIO left the AFL in the 1930s, it did not set us back, it propelled the movement forward. The CIO was committed to organizing the workforce of the day -- mass production workers -- and it changed the labor movement.
I believe today we are taking the steps that will change the labor movement and change the future for workers.
Waves emanating from a failed union drive in Jonquiere could overrun the corporate breakwater of the world's largest retailer today as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. holds its annual meeting in Arkansas.
Shareholder proposals include a call for Wal-Mart to deliver a "sustainability" report, a measure widely, but not wholly, linked to Wal-Mart's abrupt closing of its Jonquiere outlet after union accreditation was obtained
Canada's largest pension fund manager, the Caisse de depot et de placement du Quebec, is a supporter of the proposal.
"We encourage businesses to increase their transparency so shareholders can evaluate their risk," fund spokesperson Lucie Freniere said yesterday.
That stance is aligned with the fund's social investment policy, said Freniere, and not necessarily a consequence of the April 29 closing of the Jonquiere store.
As of Dec. 31, 2004, the fund held just over 2.8 million Wal-Mart shares worth about $177 million, she said.
Citing poor financial performance, Wal-Mart shut the Jonquiere outlet, cutting about 190 employees, four months after it became the first Wal-Mart in North America to gain union accreditation.
That was clearly anti-union and "Quebecers can't ignore what (Wal-Mart) did in Quebec," said Sister Esther Champagne of the Regroupement pour la responsabilitie sociale des entreprises.
She is co-chair of an umbrella group of Quebec religious communities whose members include small stakeholders who will support the resolution.
"We have to ask of Wal-Mart if it has other visions or definitions of workplace or employee relations other than one," Champagne said. "In Quebec, the right to unionize is a fundamental right and we ask that it permit that in its business."
The lead filer for the resolution calling for the sustainability report is the United Methodist Board of Pension & Health Benefits, said Peter Chapman of Vancouver-based Shareholder Association for Research and Education, a non-profit organization sponsored by Canadian labour organizations.
In addition to fallout triggered by closing the Jonquiere store, Wal-Mart faces suits and a U.S. federal investigation for violating various labour and employment laws, Chapman said.
Those incidents engender valid investors' concern, particularly as they have been linked to Wal-Mart's recent financial performance, Chapman said.
Wal-Mart did not respond to a request yesterday for comments on the issue.
The shareholders' proposal asks Wal-Mart to asses its policies and practices in light of its "social, environmental and economic sustainability."
Employees at a third Wal-Mart in Quebec recently won union accreditation with United Food and Commercial Workers Canada. About 180 employees at the Hull Wal-Mart are to vote on union membership in a secret ballot June 9.
The UFCW also represents unionized employees at the closed Jonquiere outlet and at the Wal-Mart in St. Hyacinthe, where the union is in negotiations for a first collective agreement.
Staffers Use Tactics Learned With Candidates to Pressure Wal-Mart
By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
It's a Thursday morning in a downtown office building on K Street. Five staffers are fielding phone calls, soliciting help, blogging and brainstorming. Handmade posters are taped to drab walls, tracking their plans and progress. White boards are scribbled on, erased and scribbled on some more. Boxes sit unpacked. Dating lives have been put on hold. There are no plans for a summer vacation. Weekend rest is fleeting.
In other words, not much has changed since these staffers were with the Howard Dean, Wesley K. Clark and John F. Kerry presidential campaigns. But this time, they are trying to win one for the Wal-Mart workers.
Their group is the latest manifestation of the ongoing campaign to change Wal-Mart Stores Inc., the nation's largest private employer. After years of failed attempts to help Wal-Mart workers organize a union, leaders of the United Food and Commercial Workers are trying an Internet-oriented approach developed in recent failed presidential campaigns.
When Joseph T. Hansen became president last year, he decided to switch from approaching employees inside the stores to putting on a wider campaign designed to win over the company's customers and general public. His hope is that public reaction and negative publicity will force the company's executives to change some practices.
In January, the UFCW hired 29-year-old Paul Blank, former political director of the Howard Dean presidential campaign. He pulled together a team of other young former staffers from failed Democratic presidential campaigns to start a grass-roots effort to draw in consumers. The group calls its effort Wake-Up Wal-Mart, and it tries to use tools developed in political campaigns.
"For a number of years, we were going by the rules," attempting to sign up workers under rights granted by the National Labor Relations Act, said William T. McDonough, head of UFCW's organizing department. "We got very frustrated."
The mega-retailer's public image had already taken some hits before the campaign began, in part because of earlier attempts by organized labor to draw attention to what it argues is the downside of Wal-Mart's dominance. Wal-Mart is facing the largest ever class-action lawsuit charging gender discrimination. Its critics say it does not pay a fair wage and creates a burden for localities because it fails to provide adequate health care for its workers. Wal-Mart has agreed to pay $11 million to settle a federal investigation that found hundreds of illegal immigrants were hired to clean its stores.
McDonough said two well-known failed organizing attempts showed that the unions had to change their tactics: Wal-Mart eliminated meatpacking positions nationwide and began to sell prepackaged meat after meatpackers at a store in Texas voted to organize in 2000. The company said it had intended to do so before the workers voted for a union. "That had a chilling impact on any other organizing," McDonough said. Wal-Mart in April closed a Jonquiere, Quebec, store where workers had voted in a union. Wal-Mart said the store was underperforming. And so the union decided to respond with a more public campaign.
"It's a very small group dealing with very big things," Blank said. Involved in politics and campaigns since he worked in Bill Bradley's office at age 12, he most recently worked for Joe Trippi, Dean's former campaign director.
The other staffers include Buffy Wicks, 27, an antiwar activist who worked on the Dean campaign and is Wake Up's political director, and Jeremy Bird, 26, who grew up in Missouri and whose mother used to work for Wal-Mart. He went to Harvard Divinity School and was a Dean campaign worker "until the bitter end."
Brendan Bush, 25, runs the group's blog. He was on the Internet crew for the Kerry campaign. "Back before I knew I was a Democrat," he said, he teased his uncle who was proud of his union membership in the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen. The group's communications adviser, Chris Kofinis, 35, helped originate the DraftWesleyClark.com campaign and was a strategist for TheNaderFactor.com, a Democratic group that worked to pull Nader voters to other candidates.
Wake-Up Wal-Mart's first major action was to garner opposition to Wal-Mart for Mother's Day. The group launched a campaign called "Love Mom, Not Wal-Mart." Shoppers signed a petition promising not to buy a Mother's Day gift at the store. News of the petition went out on blogs and community activist sites. About 22,000 people signed the online promise in the week and a half before Mother's Day. Kofinis said he considered the signatures a success, not because they had an impact on Wal-Mart sales, but because he thinks they helped raise awareness of the group's criticisms of Wal-Mart.
Visitors to the organization's Web site can also enter their Zip codes to find nearby Wal-Marts and then promise, online, to take responsibility for focusing attention on that particular store. Many people signed up to do this during the Mother's Day campaign, gathering signatures for petitions criticizing Wal-Mart or standing near stores to tell people about Wal-Mart practices they dislike. "We're focusing on people who might go to Wal-Mart and don't know the facts and might change their behavior," Kofinis said.
The UFCW's membership includes employees at grocery stores, which are facing stiff competition from Wal-Mart stores, known as Supercenters, that also sell groceries.
Wal-Mart has no plans to deal with Wake-Up Wal-Mart. "We do not plan to talk with them," said Wal-Mart spokeswoman Mona Williams in an e-mail. "Some of our critics are open-minded people who are genuinely concerned about issues and want to make the world a better place. We reach out to them and try to work toward common goals. Other groups simply pull publicity stunts to further their own narrow self-interests -- and Wake-Up Wal-Mart is clearly in that category."
The UFCW is not the only union pursuing a different kind of strategy. The Service Employees International Union backed a group formed earlier this year called Wal-Mart Watch. Much like Wake-Up Wal-Mart, it is trying to build alliances with other groups that disagree with Wal-Mart policies.
Some labor experts think the UFCW's different effort is long overdue. "It surprised me that it took so long for UFCW to realize it doesn't work on a store-by-store effort," said Kate L. Bronfenbrenner, director of labor education research at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y.
Recently, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. (R) vetoed a bill that would have effectively required Wal-Mart to pay more for health benefits in Maryland, and voters in a Los Angeles suburb rejected an initiative to open a Supercenter there.
Though Wal-Mart chief executive H. Lee Scott Jr. "has said he will not raise wages, if you get more stuff like the vetoed Maryland law and in Los Angeles, I think that they will begin to make some accommodations in both wages and health care," said Nelson N. Lichtenstein, editor of the upcoming book "Wal-Mart: Template for 21st Century Capitalism?" and director of the Center for the Study of Work, Labor and Democracy at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
Some believe they are seeing the beginnings of that already: Wal-Mart is launching a massive counteroffensive to protect its image. It is spending millions of dollars on advertisements in which employees praise the company as a great place to work. For the first time, Wal-Mart invited 100 journalists to its Arkansas headquarters this spring.
At a recent morning staff meeting in Wake-Up Wal-Mart's conference room, staffers pored over the clips from the day's papers and Web sites that mentioned Wal-Mart. Many were about a supposed whistle-blower fired from the company. "Have we reached out to his lawyers?" Blank asked.
"We should get people on the Hill" who sponsored the whistle-blower legislation to respond, Kofinis said.
"We're also still getting play on this Medicaid thing, which is great," Blank continued, referring to stories about Wal-Mart workers who turned to Medicaid because they couldn't afford the company's health coverage.
His colleagues were getting antsy. Their cell phones were ringing, legs were wiggling, and the staff just wanted the morning meeting to be over so they could get back to work.
With that, Blank rallied his troops: "Trust me, they are meeting 18 hours a day to figure out what to do with us."