THURSDAY, JANUARY 26, 2006
Facts about Wal-Mart's health plans debunk its damage control

After this week's Seattle Times story revealing the extent to which Wal-Mart has shifted its labor costs onto Washington taxpayers, spokespeople for the mammoth retailer have been working overtime on damage control. Wal-Mart Watch, the organization that leaked the infamous internal Wal-Mart memo outlining plans to cut labor costs even further by hiring more part-timers -- but only "healthy" ones -- offers the following facts debunking many of Wal-Mart's claims:

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Seattle Times reports on two confidential state reports that show that a substantial number of Wal-Mart employees in Washington rely on government-funded health care plans. The reports, obtained by the Times, show that over 3,100 Wal-Mart employees are on Medicaid and the Basic Health Plan (BHP) -- a figure nearly twice as high as any other Washington employer. Below are facts rebutting Wal-Mart’s false claims about its employee health care plan:

WAL-MART RHETORIC:  We Don’t Track Our State Health Care Spending. “Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the company has no information that would confirm or refute the state’s findings… Hill told lawmakers in Olympia last week that the company didn't know what percentage of payroll it spends on health benefits.” [Seattle Times, 1/24/06]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Tracks Its Health Care Spending in Other States. “DeMarco said the company testified in 2004 that its health care spending amounted to about 5 percent of payroll. Last year, he said, they told lawmakers that it had risen to more than 7 percent.” [Washington Post, 1/14/06]

WAL-MART RHETORIC:  Our Plans Are Affordable. “We implemented a lot of new plans last fall that we believe may appeal to people who had chosen to not take our coverage,” Hill said. [Seattle Times, 1/24/06]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Workers Cannot Afford High Deductible Health Care. Wal-Mart’s new “Value Plan” health insurance benefit has a minimum $1,000 deductible for individuals and $3,000 for families. According to Wal-Mart’s own facts, a “full time” employee at 34 hours per week, making the Wal-Mart average wage of $10.11 per hour, will earn just $ 17,874.48 per year. [Wal-Mart OE Magazine, January 2006; 2005 Wal-Mart Benefits Guide, pg 27; http://www.walmartfacts.com]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Executives Know Their Plan is Expensive. Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart Executive Vice President for Benefits, wrote in a memo to the Wal-Mart Board of Directors, “Wal-Mart’s critics an easily exploit some aspects of our benefits offering to make their case; in other words, our critics are correct in some of their observations. Specifically, our coverage is expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance.” [Wal-Mart Secret Memo, Page 5, http://walmartwatch.com/memo; New York Times, 10/26/05]

WAL-MART RHETORIC:  Everyone Else Is Doing It. “But Wal-Mart employees, like the employees of other large retailers that employ many low-wage workers, are only slightly more likely to collect Medicaid benefits than the national average.” [Washington Post editorial, 1/24/06]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Employees Are More Likely to Rely on Government Health Care Assistance. “More than 3,100 Wal-Mart employees in Washington were benefiting from state-subsidized health coverage throughout 2004 — nearly double the total for any other company, according to two confidential state reports. That total is much higher than previously thought. And it indicates that as many as 20 percent of Wal-Mart's employees were getting taxpayer-funded health care for themselves or their dependents.” [Seattle Times, 1/24/06]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Children Are Much More Likely to Rely on CHIP Plans. “Wal-Mart, with 42,000 workers in [Georgia] in 2002, had about one child in the health care program for every four employees. The ratio for Publix was one child in PeachCare for every 22 employees. For Shaw, it was one for every 30 employees, and for Mohawk, one for every 26 workers.” [Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 2/27/04]

FACTS:  Wal-Mart Fails to Cover Employees Like Other Large Companies. Nationally, 68 percent of workers in large firms (200 employees or more) receive their health benefits from their employer. Wal-Mart covers just 48 percent. For example, 82 percent of Costco workers are covered by the company plan. [Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust, Employer Health Benefits 2004 Annual Survey, Exhibit 3.2, New York Times, 5/4/05, Wal-Mart Facts, http://www.walmartfacts.com]

WAL-MART RHETORIC:  It’s Purely Political. “Wal-Mart says the legislation is ‘purely political’ and would do nothing about the soaring cost of health care.” [Seattle Times, 1/24/06]

FACTS:  Health Care Would Address Rising State Medicaid Costs. Wal-Mart has over 16,000 Washington employees and Fair Share Health Care legislation would move many of them from Medicaid and BHP to Wal-Mart’s employee plan. [http://www.walmartfacts.com]

FACTS:  Health Care Bills Have Bi-Partisan Support. Fair Share Health Care bills introduced last week in West Virginia, Kentucky, and New Hampshire each have Republican and Democratic co-sponsors.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 25, 2006
Washington taxpayers' Wal-Mart price tag in 2004: $9 million

The following was distributed Tuesday by the Center for a Changing Workforce, an organization that provides research, education, and policy analysis on employment and benefit issues facing low-wage and nonstandard workers, including temporary, contract, and part-time work:

State Taxpayer Subsidy to Wal-Mart Over $9 million in 2004
3,100 Wal-Mart Employees on Medicaid

SEATTLE -- A confidential report, leaked to the Seattle Times, confirms that Wal-Mart is using taxpayer subsidies to provide healthcare insurance to its employees and the number of workers at Wal-Mart on Medicaid more than tripled in the two-year period between 2002 and 2004.

The Washington State Legislature is considering legislation (HB-2517, SB-6356), which would require Wal-Mart and other large employers to contribute more toward the cost of employee healthcare.

The report in today’s Seattle Times reveals Wal-Mart leads the list of Washington companies in the number of employees on Medicaid. Wal-Mart had 1,660 employees and 1,520 employees with children on Medicaid in 2004, according to the state Department of Health and Social Services. The total of 3,180 employees (and employees with children) on Medicaid at Wal-Mart was 22% of the company’s entire workforce in Washington State that same year.

The number of Wal-Mart employees on Medicaid escalated from about 450 to 1,660 -- tripling from 2002 to 2004. The company’s employment in Washington during the same period increased about 20% -- from about 12,000 to 14,500. The number of Wal-Mart employees on the State-subsidized Basic Health Plan (BHP) increased from about 340 to 456 employees during that same period -- a 34% increase. A few employees may be on both BHP and Medicaid.

“Wal-Mart’s ads claim ‘our people make the difference,’” said David West, Director of the Center for a Changing Workforce, “and the company calls itself a ‘family-friendly’ business, but this report reveals that it’s Washington’s taxpayers who really make the difference when it comes to taking care of Wal-Mart employees and their families.” The Center is a non-profit public policy organization.

The Center for a Changing Workforce estimates that state taxpayers paid an estimated $9.25 million for Wal-Mart healthcare subsidies in 2004. Center for a Changing Workforce estimates the cost in the 2005-2006 Biennium to be $21.7-million. The Center also estimates that for each additional store Wal-Mart opens in Washington State, it costs the taxpayers an additional $136,000 per year in Medicaid subsidies alone.

Today’s new figures show that 11% of Washington Wal-Mart employees are in the adult Medicaid program. That’s more than double the figure Wal-Mart claimed existed in a recent internal memo. Another 11% of the company’s employees have children enrolled in the Medicaid kids program.

The list of companies released today by the Seattle Times, ranked Wal-Mart first in Washington State among employers with workers on Medicaid. Second on the list is McDonald’s Restaurants (1,800 employees), followed by Safeway (1,500), Fred Meyer (1,000) and Express Personnel (1,000).

A majority of Wal-Mart’s employees who are Medicaid beneficiaries were working full-time (35+ hours per week). At Wal-Mart’s average wage of $9.68/hour, full-time employees can qualify for Medicaid in Washington. Workers at the other companies on the list were primarily part-time workers.

TUESDAY, JANUARY 24, 2006
Over 3,100 Wal-Mart workers got state tax-funded health care
The total -- double that over any other company -- includes nearly 1,800 full-timers 

The following story appears on the front page in today's edition of The Seattle Times (a fine unionized newspaper that all area union members should consider subscribing to, or at the very least, establish a free online account to access and search its news archives):

Over 3,100 Wal-Mart workers got state health aid
By Ralph Thomas
Seattle Times Olympia bureau

OLYMPIA -- More than 3,100 Wal-Mart employees in Washington were benefiting from state-subsidized health coverage throughout 2004 -- nearly double the total for any other company, according to two confidential state reports.

That total is much higher than previously thought. And it indicates that as many as 20 percent of Wal-Mart's employees were getting taxpayer-funded health care for themselves or their dependents.

The reports are sure to fuel the debate over a labor-backed push in the Legislature to require companies such as Wal-Mart to pay more for health care. Democrats in the House and Senate say the reports show that Wal-Mart and some other big companies are shifting millions of dollars in health-care costs to the state.

"I think taxpayers should be outraged," Rep. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, said Monday. "They are subsidizing one of the wealthiest corporations in the world."

Amy Hill, a spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said the company has no information that would confirm or refute the state's findings. But she said the data are more than a year old and might no longer be accurate.

"We implemented a lot of new plans last fall that we believe may appeal to people who had chosen to not take our coverage," Hill said.

Citing state and federal confidentiality rules, the state last month provided the new reports to only a handful of legislators and legislative staff members. But copies were leaked to The Seattle Times.

Medicaid is a state-federal program that provides health coverage to families on welfare and children in low-income families. The Basic Health Plan (BHP), funded entirely by the state, mostly covers low-income adults.

Both programs are aimed primarily at people in families with incomes below 200 percent of the federal poverty level. That would mean a family of four with an income of about $38,000 would be eligible.

The new reports lists companies that in 2004 had the most employees receiving benefits under the programs.

Wal-Mart came out on top of both lists, by wide margins.

One report shows that, throughout 2004, an average 3,180 Wal-Mart employees were receiving state-funded medical assistance, including Medicaid, for themselves or for a dependent. The other report shows that 456 Wal-Mart employees were on the state's Basic Health Plan that year. Some employees may be counted on both of the lists.

McDonald's restaurants had the second-highest total, with an average 1,824 employees receiving Medicaid benefits in 2004.

Safeway was next, with 1,539 employees on Medicaid and 173 employees on the BHP.

With about 16,000 employees each, Wal-Mart and Safeway are among the state's largest employers. McDonald's has about 12,000 employees in Washington, but they work for 45 separately owned franchises or at one of 62 outlets the corporation owns.

The companies with the highest totals of employees on Medicaid and the BHP were concentrated mostly in a few industries, including general-merchandise stores, groceries and fast-food chains. Several companies that recruit and hire out temporary workers or day laborers -- such as Express Personnel Services and Labor Ready Northwest -- also ranked high on both lists.

Lawmakers said one of the most startling findings in the new reports is that more than half of the Wal-Mart employees who received Medicaid benefits -- nearly 1,800 -- were full-time workers.

For nearly all of the other companies listed, the vast majority of employees on Medicaid were part-time workers.

"It shows Wal-Mart isn't even taking care of its full-time employees," said Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle.

But Cody and Conway said the reports shine a light on other companies as well.

"It's not just Wal-Mart," Conway said. "A lot of low-cost employers are shifting their health-care costs to the state."

Neither of the reports makes any attempt to calculate how much it cost the state to cover the employees and their families. But it's clearly in the tens of millions of dollars.

Wal-Mart defends its employee health benefits as competitive and affordable.

Hill, the Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the company recently put in place a new "value" health plan for its employees. Under that plan, employees get 100 percent coverage for their first three doctor visits each year and after that must pay a $1,000 deductible. She said the plan's employee premiums average $23 per month.

Still, Wal-Mart's latest estimates show that only about half of its employees are on one of the company health plans. And, in an internal company memo leaked last fall, Wal-Mart acknowledged that, nationwide, nearly half of its employees' children were either on Medicaid or were uninsured.

More than a dozen other states have conducted studies to identify companies with the most employees on government-subsidized health care. In nearly every case, Wal-Mart came out on top.

Democratic lawmakers in Olympia hope to pass legislation that would require companies with 5,000 or more employees to put at least 9 percent of their payroll costs toward health-care benefits. Similar legislation was approved earlier this month in Maryland.

It's all part of an effort by a coalition of labor unions and health-care groups to push for so-called Wal-Mart bills in more than 30 states.

Wal-Mart says the legislation is "purely political" and would do nothing about the soaring cost of health care.

Hill told lawmakers in Olympia last week that the company didn't know what percentage of payroll it spends on health benefits.

To help lawmakers here prepare for the debate, Gov. Christine Gregoire last year requested the two new reports even though she knew her agencies would not be allowed to release the results to the public.

Copies stamped "confidential" were sent last month to about a half-dozen legislators, several legislative staff members and the governor's health-policy adviser. To produce the reports, the state matched its Medicaid and BHP recipient lists with employee data compiled by the state Employment Security Department. But Employment Security officials say they are barred from publicly releasing any data that reveal company names. The rankings in the new reports are similar to what lawmakers saw three years ago in a report that the state now says was improperly released to the public.

But the totals in the new reports -- especially for numbers of employees on Medicaid -- are much higher than before. The old report, for instance, indicated only 450 Wal-Mart employees were receiving Medicaid benefits, compared to more than 3,100 now.

It's unclear why the new numbers are so much higher, but lawmakers speculated the state did a more thorough job of gathering data this time. Officials at the Employment Security Department declined to comment.

MONDAY, JANUARY 23, 2006
Union membership rates steady; Washington still ranks 6th

The U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of Labor Statistics released its annual report on union membership Friday and unionization rates held steady nationally. In 2005, 12.5 percent of wage and salary workers were union members, unchanged from 2004. That represents a significant increase of 213,000 union members in the last year, reversing a trend of decline in recent years as good union jobs disappeared. However, the national unionization rate has steadily declined over the years from a high of 20.1% in 1983, the first year for which comparable union data are available.

In Washington state, the number of union members climbed 13,000 to an estimated 523,000, but the overall union membership rate dropped from 19.3% in 2004 to 19.1% in 2005 as the state continued to emerge from the national recession, adding more than 100,000 jobs. Washington continues to rank 6th highest in the nation in terms of the unionization rate. Only New York, Hawaii, Alaska, Michigan and New Jersey, in that order, have higher rates.

Note: The DOL news release on union membership statistics and related details are posted at http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.toc.htm 

In 2005, full-time wage and salary workers who were union members had median usual weekly earnings of $801, which is 29 percent higher than the median of $622 for wage and salary workers who were not represented by unions. The difference was even greater among Hispanic union workers, who made 50 percent more than Hispanic non-union workers.

"In a political climate that’s hostile to workers’ rights, these numbers illustrate the extraordinary will of workers to gain a voice on the job despite enormous obstacles," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney in a statement released Friday.

Surveys indicate that more than half of American workers say they would join a union today if they could.  But unscrupulous employers and a multi-billion dollar union-avoidance consulting industry routinely fire, harass and intimidate workers who express interest in joining unions -- even though that's illegal. Cornell University scholar Kate Bronfenbrenner studied hundreds of organizing campaigns, and found:

• When faced with employees who want to join together in a union, 92 percent of private-sector employers force employees to attend closed-door meetings to hear anti-union propaganda; 80 percent require supervisors to attend training sessions on attacking unions; and 78 percent require that supervisors deliver anti-union messages to workers they oversee.

• 75 percent hire outside consultants to run anti-union campaigns, often based on mass psychology and distorting the law.

• Half of employers threaten to shut down partially or totally if employees join a union.

• In 25 percent of organizing campaigns, private-sector employers illegally fire workers because they want to form a union.

• Even after workers successfully form a union, in one-third of the instances, employers never negotiate a contract.

Historic legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act was introduced in Congress last year. It is intended to articulate the kind of labor law reform that will ultimately be necessary level the playing field for American workers. It has been co-sponsored by both of Washington state's Democratic U.S. Senators and all six Democratic U.S. Representatives, but the measure has little chance of passing given Republican control of the White House and both houses of Congress.

All that said, there is recognition within the labor movement that unions could to a much better job recruiting new members. A number of international unions frustrated with declining membership rolls split from the AFL-CIO last year to form the Change to Win Coalition in an effort to improve union organizing efforts.