Interesting statement by Ehrlich spokesman Henry Fawell in an article by Anna Bailey, “Ehrlich likely to veto ‘Wal-Mart bill,’” THE EXAMINER, VIRGINIA EDITION, Wed., May 18, 2005, at 9, available at http://www.dcexaminer.com/articles/2005/05/17/news/maryland_news/02newsmd18walmart.txt: 

Ms. Bailey quotes Henry Fawell, a spokesman for Maryland Governor Robert L. Ehrlich, Jr., as saying, “The governor continues to call on the business community to challenge lawmakers who take their checks and continue to vote against [business] interests.”

I am gratified to see that unscrupulous legislators who take money from the business community, then fail to deliver favorable votes as promised, finally will be held accountable.  Short of doomed efforts to enforce these illegal contracts in court, aggrieved plutocrats have had no remedy for such villainy.  Governor Ehrlich, however, stands as a shining example of integrity, not merely talking the talk but walking the walk:  Having accepted Wal-Mart’s checks—notably the proceeds (at $1,000 per attendee) of a December 2004 Wal-Mart-sponsored fundraiser (reported in the Baltimore Sun for Dec. 28, 2004, available at www.baltimoresun.com/news/health/bal-md.politics28dec28,1,2694057.column?coll=bal-health-headlines) and one for $4,000 on January 12, 2005 (reported on the Maryland State Board of Elections, Campaign Finance Database, available at www.elections.state.md.us/campaign_finance/database/index.html; search for “Wal%.”)—he intends to come through and veto legislation that would require Wal-Mart “to spend a certain percentage of total wages on health care coverage” rather than dumping the entire burden of Wal-Mart employees’ health care on others.  One hopes the people of Maryland never take it into their heads to challenge government officials “who take their checks and continue to [act] against [the people’s] interests.”

I emailed my petition at wakeupwalmart.com yesterday...its great to see that you guys are doing it now too...lets go..and show them what we all can do...way to go UFCW!!

It’s amazing… you silly union people think it’s a moral obligation to have employers pay for YOUR health care costs.  The problem here is your misguided perception - it’s not Wal-Mart that’s unloading health care cost onto the taxpayers - it’s employees trying to unload THEIR OWN health care cost onto the employers.  Silly how you just don’y get it.

Be American - if you don’t like Wal-Mart… don’t shop there (but I think you’ll find you’re one of the few).

I suppose you can put me in as one of the few - according to Den in - who doesn’t shop at Wal-Mart. Our family hasn’t been inside one for about four years, and I am looking in to divesting our mutual fund portfolio of funds that contain the stock. Some of us do “get it.”

Hey Den,
I’m not in a Union or a Union state and I don’t think a company has to have morals at all, but here in Fl. Wal Mart employees are taking massive amounts of State Gov. assistance. So since I don’t shop at WM should I have to foot the bill because they are too cheap to do so?  The other large box stores in Fl. have some min. health care here. Publix, Costco etc. but you’re telling us that the largest, richest company in the U.S. should rip us off for taxes while sending billions to prop up the communist China government and in turn military with our tax dollars. So when you say “be American”, I guess you do so with the communist flag of China flying proudly in your front yard and cupboards full of cheap ‘made in communist China’ non-American products from WM.
From last weeks stock report it appears many of us Real Americans are waking up and not not shopping at WM so it appears we are not so few after all.

Apparently it’s okay for Wal-Mart to send troubleshooters
to their stores wherever they think interest in a union might
be percolating. The point being to spread fear among them.
They only give one side of the story--their (Walmart’s) fear
being that they will have to pay them more will have to give
them benefits, maybe have to respect some kind of seniority
and won’t have the right just to arbitrarily fire someone. I
would doubt very much that these troubleshooters discuss
any of this. Instead the prospective union is demonized no
doubt and visions are planted in heads that should the scenario come to pass many of them if not them all will be
out of work. Wal-Mart with or without a union is not going to
disappear.

Good for you Janet in Ohio… but don’t just talk the talk here - ensure you divest as you say you will.  Sell when it’s low… hmm…

Jules in Florida - people that make $10 an hour are more than likely in need of some kind of public assistence whether they work at Wal-Mart or at the local variety store.  Your taxes are actually collected to help these people.  Your rant as to the communist flag of China - well your rant just makes you look dumb.  To be American here means to exercise your right not to shop there - nothing more and nothing less.  As for the stock - it has little to do with actual profit or loss - and everything to do with the moronic unions in the US causing bad publicity… funny how the hard working men and women of Wal-Mart conitually reject these unions - which is their god given all American right - and the unions retaliate by launching untruthful and spiteful publicity attacks on the company - thereby putting these same workers at risk of losing there jobs…

No one is forcing people to work at Wal-Mart. If they want a better-paying job, they are free to go get one. We have lots of great vocational schools all over the US where folks who don’t want to go to college can learn lucrative trades. Nobody is forced to work at Wal-Mart for Wal-Mart wages - it’s their choice.

Why should a company pay for its employees’ healthcare? What gives the state the right to dictate the nature of that relationship? Wal-Mart pays what it has to pay to get employees - it does not appear to have any problems with staffing.

Finally - why should seniority matter at all? Sticking around longer does not you more worthy. The privilege of seniority is one of the worst ideas in the labor movement. It makes hard workers resentful and is terrible for PR for those who believe that America is a meritocracy.

Pull yourself up by the bootstraps gd it and show some
initiative and after you graduate from vocational school you
can follow the good paying jobs they’re intended for over to
China. Whatever.
As for meritocracy exactly who decides that? Using what
kind of criteria? I know more quiet well behaved people who
work hardest of all getting passed by almost continually
because they don’t know the first thing about selling themselves to their boss who may in fact have someone who
don’t work so hard at all in mind for promotion. Of course in
a large multinational like we’re talking about it’s almost im-
possible to get lost in the shuffle.
To get back to the basic premise for this site it’s not just
the substandard wages and the lousy benefits--it’s also how
it affects other sectors of the american workplace. Such as
in manufacturing. Such as in constantly eroding and eating
up local businesses which also erodes job opportunites in a
variety of fields. So hands off this sacred cow called Wal-Mart
I don’t think so.

Can someone explain to me why this bill did not include businesses employing less than 10,000 employees? Are the Democrats (and UFCW) saying that those employees are not worthy of healhcare? This bill was one sided, deceptive, discriminatory and a slap in the face to every American worker that is employed by a “small” business. Is this the result of Union contributions filling the pockets of Democrats? I used to be a Democrat. But this party, just like the Republicans, has become nothing but a special-interest prostitute. Way to go UFCW! I can tell this union is out to help small business employees.

I want good healthcare for everyone. But you people are taking advantage of people’s misfortunes (no healthcare) in an effort to destroy a single company. It’s really a shame, because there are a lot, A LOT of people out there that don’t have health insurance. And let me tell you something: most of them don’t work for Wal-Mart. Please stop taking advantage of people and start addressing the real issues.

Edgar,

You’ve hit on the main nerve here.  These people want to unionize Wal-Mart, or to destroy it when that doesn’t happen.  The site is registered to the UFCW and SEIU’s Pres. is on this “organization’s” board, so don’t let them tell you that this isn’t a union front. 

They don’t care about medical benefits.  All this group cares about is collecting union dues from over 1 million Wal-Mart employees.

And all Wal-mart cares about is keeping their wages and
benefits down. For all of you who do not make very much
consider this whatever you wind up paying in dues is more
than made up several times over in wages and other bene-
fits. You might also find you have a voice in the workplace
and protection from being fired for no reason at all.

There are some (not as many as in years past) employers
who have kept unions out but paid their employees well and
give them decent benefit packages. More power to them--
but believe what you like Wal-Mart isn’t one of them and
they have no intentions in that respect either.

Even so Edgar does make some good points for instance
on the 10,000 number. It seems arbitrary to me also. The
reason Wal-Mart as a retailer is being singled out no doubt
is because they are the worst abuser if only because of their
size but when thousands of their employees needing some
form of public assistance in a given state the taxpayers of
that state are stuck with the bill. Consider also I’ve seen
estimates (and I hate statistics because I always think there’s
some bias attached) for 2004 that put 20 billion of the USA’s
trade deficit of almost 666 billion onto Wal-Mart.

I wonder how much we, the tax payers, have to contribute to the health care of all those employed by small businesses. I’m almost certain, that that number is a lot higher than for WM employees.

Just to simplify this for the simple minded among you, 10,000 employees is a magic number in the healthcare insurance industry! If you have 10,000 or more employees enrolled in an insurance company’s plan, the rates are drastically reduced.  The amount that you are charged for coverage for each employee depends on the number of employees covered. The higher the number of employees, the lower the cost to cover each individual employee.

10,000 is not an arbitrary number!!!

And as for the trade school crowd, listen-up. I have a degree in computer science; I’m a computer programmer. My last three jobs were all outsourced to different companies in India. I’m back in school, at the age of 45, studying for a degree in business. If you think a trade school certificate will protect you from the Wal-Mart effect, your in for a rude awakening a few years down the road.

I can tell you right now that all of Wal-Mart’s competitors realize that they will need to lower their labor costs if they want to stay in business and compete with Wal-Mart. That means lower wages for the people at the grocery store, the shoe store, the electronics store, the book store, EVERY STORE.

What this means to you is, it doesn’t matter if your a carpenter, a plumber, a car salesman, a real estate salesman or any other type of middle class worker; all those people who work for Wal-Mart’s competitors will have less money to spend. That means that they won’t be spending as much at the place where you work! Eventually your boss will have to cut your wages too. Either that or lay you off.

It’s called the WAL-MART EFFECT, and eventually it’s going to effect your family.

See you learn something every day. At least now we have
a plausible explanation for the 10,000 number.

Onto Wal-Mart’s wages issue. With 1.2 million employees
one would think that the grand majority say 1.1 million of
them are currently below the poverty level set by the gov-
ernment. At the same time the same federal government is
dumping all kinds of unfunded mandates back on the states.
It looks good for the President because then he can give you
a tax break. On the other hand the states sooner or later aregoing to have to take it away from you.

On the outsourcing--for some reason (labor costs) manu-
facturing jobs are not wanted here. The people in power
colluding with big business have decided that we will be a
service consumer society--they have their reasons practically
all sinister. Take a look at the trade deficits---666 billion in
2004. Around 750 billion projected in 2005. This is not just
a problem it’s a catastrophe. An economic Tsunami looming
on the horizon every bit as deadly to our economy as the
real one this year was to the people of southeast Asia. The
grand majority of them didn’t see it coming either. The fact
is we can’t continue along the same path. Whether it means
getting out of the WTO or reconfiguring our trade agreements
into fair trade agreements somebody is going to have to make a hard decision that is not going to be popular with big
business and with the rest of the world.

As far as Wal-Mart they need to get all of their employees
above the poverty level--with or without a union. They need
to stop exploiting the labor of other countries to their own
benefit and the detriment of labor in our own country.

The reason for the 10000 people number listed above is BS… obviously someone who Knows nothing about insurance.

Bill - grow up and take this site seriously please.

The Unions vs. Walmart argument going on here looks and smells like a straw man. The pro-Walmart argument insinuates that union corruption is behind any attempts to organize. The pro-union argument leans towards demonizing Walmarts obscene profits at the expense of their workers. At times, the argument looks like a classic laissez faire capitalism vs. socialistic capitalism debate.

But these are all straw men. The real issue that is not being touched on at all; the merging of corporate and government power structures should be the focus here. Every time in recent history that the Business-Government line has blurred, it has lead to absolute disaster (Japan, Germany, Chile, Venezuela, Nicaragua...to name a few). One could argue that a workers’ right to organize is only a defense mechanism against the truly awesome combined power of state and capital.

There is nothing wrong with a company’s right to profit. I am a business owner and would not look favorably on attempts to unreasonably restrict my ability to profit. But this is not about a business’ right to profit; this is about companies so large that they use their clout and money to buy favorable laws that put the onus on the taxpayer. This is about the abuse and distortion of the capitalist economic system.

Remember kids, capitalism is amoral; it knows not right from wrong, only profit from loss. There must be a guiding hand that keeps business honest, because they cannot keep themselves honest. Otherwise, we will become twigs that are trampled underfoot as the well-connected ruthlessly pursue profit above all else.

As any self employed person will tell you, good health insurance is expensive when you try to buy it as an individual. Group rates are always lower; like companies that have a group of 10,000 or more employees.

DAN, give the people who visit this site credit for their obvious intelligence! If you don’t understand the decrease in cost associated with group rates then YOU obviously understand nothing about insurance and you’re attempting to deceive the good people who visit this site.

Again… Grow up Bill and take this site seriously.  Do not comment on what you do not know.  Please - it’s people like you that give these boards a bad rep.

Just go onto Google and do a search on this bill - within an hour you should be able to piece together the real reason for the 10000 number.  Since you’re a little slower than the rest on us - maybe you should set aside the afternoon to figure it out.

Good Luck!

Would somebody please show me the part of the Constitution that says a company is required to provide health care to employees? You can’t? That’s what I thought.

If Wal-Mart were having a hard time attracting qualified employees, they might be forced to offer luxury health care. But Wal-Mart does not have staffing problems, despite annual turnover approaching 70%.

Forcing one company to provide wages and benefits higher than another company provides is not the free market at work. Free market does not mean a place where you go for free handout groceries. It means CONSUMERS decide which stores shall stay and which shall go. Let us all take a look back at the past and we will see that employers never even offered paid health care until after the WWII wage freezes made it necessary to attract qualified employees. We do not have a wage freeze now so health care may not be necessary to attract employees. Health care is not a right. It is not an obligation of your employer or the other taxpayers in this country. HEALTH CARE IS NOT A RIGHT. Healthcare is YOUR responsibility. In fact, it is my contention that the increased popularity of company paid benefits contributed to the destruction of the fee for service culture. Company paid benefits destroyed individual responsibility with regard to health care. Company paid insurance made health care much more expensive. Company paid insurance contributed to the large number of uninsured people in this country. (by uninsured, I include people insured under a spouse or parent plan, people on welfare, people who choose not to buy insurance and, yes, the very small minority who cannot afford insurance and are not poor enough to steal it from the taxpayers).

If you look at the companies that provided lavish healthcare benefits to workers, you will notice a striking similarity. All the companies are having financial problems today. GM, Ford, the Airlines, Kroger, pre-tariff steel companies, Safeway, etc. Even Costco is starting to slow down and they will reach the point where they will have to make a choice: Cut the benefits or go out of business. That is not Wal-Marts fault. Do any of you people really believe that Wal-Mart has made things worse? Do you think the clerk in Joe’s Shoe Store was making $15.00 an hour plus fully paid company benefits? Is the girl working the cash register at the Mom and Pop Grocery Store putting money into her company sponsered 401K or using her large cash bonus to buy a car? Get real, people. Mom and Pop paid squat with no benefits. Wal-Mart grew from a single Mom and Pop Ben Franklin and someday the laws of Capitalism will create a new retail giant.

Remember, healthcare is not a right. You have the right to free speech, free expression, free press, bear arms and so on. Nowhere in the Constitution does it say Free Healthcare. If you don’t like what Wal-Mart pays, don’t work there. If you don’t like Wal-Mart’s practices, don’t deal with them or don’t shop there.

There are jobs out there. The problem is most Americans don’t want to work the jobs that are available. Many people are looking for handouts. If there were no jobs, why is it that even the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette classifieds has 6 or 7 large pages of job ads in it? 

I think I am rambling now. Enjoy my post.

If Walmart put in place all the changes suggested on this site, what happens to the price of thier goods.  Where then do the less fortunate shop as thier prices go up?  There are several reports outs there that indicate that personal income is falling more and more families living from paycheck to pay check...where then do they shop if walmart prices double?

This is unreal. The government telling a private business how they have to run their business?  Wal-Mart privides a ton of jobs to low skilled people. These are jobs that will disappear if Wal-Mart closes stores as may well be the case if Maryland and other states attempt to force it to provide “better” health benefits.

Nobody forces anyone to work at Wal-Mart. They also provide low prices for ALL of us ... important especially for low income families.

Wal-Mart will pull out of states, close stores and increase prices. Not only will there be job losses ... the loss of SALES tax revenue (and property tax revenue) from Wal-Mart will be a huge bite on local government.

So the real loser is not Wal-Mart, but it is the low income people who depend on jobs, government programs and low prices that Wal-Mart helps provide.

Socialism has never worked anywhere in world history.  Its not going to work here and now either.