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Thousands Tell Wal-Mart: Your Health Care Claims Are a Sham |
Union members, workers and community activists in 35 cities rallied and marched today to let Wal-Mart know it must pay decent wages and provide affordable health insurance to its workers. Despite the giant retailer’s claim it has improved its health care plan, 57 percent of the company’s employees—some 775,000 people—are without health care.
This is totally unacceptable for a company that took in $315 billion last year, workers say, especially since Wal-Mart shifted $1.37 billion in health care costs to plans paid for with our taxes.
“The truth is that Wal-Mart is the number-one worst abuser of working people and the number-one worst corporate citizen in America,” said AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson, speaking to hundreds of participants at an Atlanta rally. “Wal-Mart is so stingy and cheap with its health insurance benefits and it charges its employees so much for them that thousands and thousands of them have to sign up for Medicaid just so they can see a doctor or go to a hospital.”
A 2004 report by the Democratic staff of the House Education and the Workforce Committee shows the average Wal-Mart costs taxpayers an estimated $108,000 a year for its workers’ children who are enrolled in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP). When workers can’t afford or are not eligible for their employer’s health insurance, families are forced to turn to taxpayer-funded programs such as Medicaid or SCHIP, costing taxpayers some $21 billion a year, according to the Commonwealth Fund.
“Here’s the bottom line: Wal-Mart management games the whole system—and it makes us pick up their tab,” Chavez-Thompson says. “And whenever its employees try to exercise their sacred right to join together and organize a union to improve their situation, Wal-Mart management does everything it can to crush them.”
The AFL-CIO is campaigning for Fair Share Health Care legislation in 31 states to require large employers such as Wal-Mart to spend a percentage of their payroll costs for workers’ health coverage or pay into a state health care fund.
The Maryland Legislature was the first to pass fair share legislation. The lawmakers had to override a veto by Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich—a veto he signed while a Wal-Mart executive stood beside him—to enact the law.
Today’s rallies were sponsored by WakeUpWalMart.com and supported by AFL-CIO central labor councils and state federations.
Help make sure employers in your state pay a Fair Share for Health Care by sending a message to your state lawmakers urging their support. Click here.
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