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In the last week, the blog Chicagoist has written what is one of the most in-depth looks at what it means for Americans to work at Walmart we’ve seen in the media this year.

In a three-part series, Chicagoist journalist Kevin Robinson, interviewed three current and former Walmart employees about what it is like for them to work for the world’s largest private employer and took a look at the labor practices that Walmart uses to create massive profits while at the same time depressing wages throughout entire industries.

That the Chicagoist is taking a look at Walmart is especially, well, appropriate.  The Good Jobs Chicago coalition has been working for years make sure that if a Walmart is built in the South Side community of Englewood it will provide good jobs with living wages. 

And we mean years. 

If you live in Chicago (and I would imagine most regular Chicagoist readers do) you’ve been hearing about this proposed Walmart store for some time.  A big-box wage ordinance that was aimed at the retailer was passed by the City Council and was then vetoed by Mayor Daley, his only veto to date (and he’s been in office for two decades).  In 2007, a coalition of activists, unions, and community organizers pushed back against Daley, not supporting him for reelection, and helping to elect a number of pro-labor alderman.  Now activists are looking to push a living wage ordinance that would require any company with 50 or more workers to pay the wage of at least $11.03 per hour if the company benefits from a city subsidy. 

So Walmart might have been in the news a few times.

Part One of the Chicagoist series introduces the three associates, all working at Chicagoland area Walmart stores, how tough management can be as taskmasters, safety concerns (two of whom have suffered injuries on the job), and how Walmart’s push for low prices extends into how they pay their employees.

The second part addresses wage concerns and one of the scams that Walmart uses to increase profits.  The scam?  Pushing employee wages so low that many employees qualify for food stamps and public assistance.  Specifically, the piece looks at how Walmart employees make such low wages that they are eligible for food stamps, which they then spend at Walmart to great advantage by the company.

Part Three examines Walmart’s labor practices, something near to our hearts here at Wake Up Walmart.  That Walmart has one of the most aggressive anti-union practices in the world should come as no surprise, and Robinson includes some very interesting information about how those practices directly impact associates.

So if you have a few minutes, head over and read the articles.  It is a very good introduction to how Walmart operates nationwide and provides good insight for anyone who might be hearing about a Walmart attempting to move into their town, or for Walmart associates to know that they are not alone when it comes to the kind of poor working conditions and employee treatment that occurs in Walmart stores everywhere.

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Here are what the voices on the Internet are saying about Wal-Mart’s support of employer-mandated health care...not surprisingly, it hasn’t taken long for most to deduce that Wal-Mart is hardly acting in an altruistic way.

Number one on Wal-Mart’s hit list? Easy. Target. Because small businesses would either be exempt from the mandate or face a less-strenuous requirement, it would be Wal-Mart’s large competitors (and more specifically those who have to this point been better at managing health care costs than Wal-Mart) that would feel the brunt of the hurt.

Jonathan Cohn at The New Republic:

I don’t want to make too much of this: Wal-Mart may chicken out once the specifics of an employer mandate end up on the table. Even if they don’t, they may not lift a finger to help. And, make no mistake, Wal-Mart is acting--as it always does--out of pure self-interest.

My undestanding is that, after all of these years, Wal-Mart has suddenly found itself in the same situation its competitors once did: Dealing with unpredictable health costs and facing new competition from businesses that have found ways to spend even less on employee health benefits. Is there some justice there? You bet.

Reihan Salam with the National Review:

There is another way of looking at this. As a large, powerful, deep-pocketed firm, Wal-Mart can sustain regulatory burdens that mom-and-pops and new entrants can’t. And so burdensome regulations are invariably Wal-Mart’s ally. Jonathan Rauch explained this dynamic brilliantly in his book Government’s End. It makes perfect sense for Wal-Mart to back a regulatory initiative that hurts its bottom line as long as it hurts its competitors more.

Megan McArdle for The Atlantic:

Wal-Mart is always going to have a seat at the table when employer mandates are discussed, because Wal-Mart is the nation’s largest private employer.  Target and Macy’s probably won’t have a seat at the table.  So Wal-Mart can influence the rules in ways that benefit Wal-Mart at the expense of the competition.

Jeffrey Young in The Atlantic:

Based on the axiom that nobody in business or politics acts strictly out of altruism, it’s safe to assume that Duke and Wal-Mart’s board of directors concluded that backing the employer mandate would provide the company with some kind of competitive advantage. When I originally reported the story, it wasn’t immediately clear to me what that might be, though I suspected it must have had something to do with Wal-Mart’s calculation of how much money the mandate would cost them relative to other retailers.

Michael Cannon, for the Cato Institute:

A couple of years ago, I shared a cab to the airport with a Wal-Mart lobbyist, who told me that Wal-Mart supports an “employer mandate.” An employer mandate is a legal requirement that employers provide a government-defined package of health benefits to their workers...But it all became clear when the lobbyist explained the reason for Wal-Mart’s position: “Target’s health-benefits costs are lower.”

I have no idea what Target’s or Wal-Mart’s health-benefits costs are.  Let’s say that Target spends $5,000 per worker on health benefits and Wal-Mart spends $10,000.  An employer mandate that requires both retail giants to spend $9,000 per worker would have no effect on Wal-Mart.  But it would cripple one of Wal-Mart’s chief competitors.

U.S. Chamber of Commerce, quoted nearly everywhere (here courtesy again, of Mr. Jeffrey Young):

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce took a pretty nasty swipe at Wal-Mart when I emailed them for a comment. Here’s the statement the Chamber’s press office sent me, attributed to James Gelfand, its senior manager for health policy: “Some businesses make the decision to use the government as a weapon against their competition. We do not agree with this method.” Ouch.

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Not long ago, we reached out to our Wal-Mart Watch communities in New York, Los Angeles, and Chicago, asking them to contact their city councils and urge them to continue to oppose Wal-Mart’s moving into their cities. Combined, the populations of Chicago, NYC and LA house nearly 15 million people, or roughly 5% of the U.S. population.

For years, Wal-Mart has tried to build stores in those and other urban centers including Detroit, Washington, DC, and Boston. Building stores in these cities represents one of the last few rich avenues for domestic U.S growth open to Wal-Mart, but to this point it’s been one big, giant FAIL.

Since submitting our request, over 25,000 letters have been sent to the city councils in LA, New York and Chicago. And below is an example of the responses those letters have been generating - this one is from David Yassky, a member of the New York City Council currently running for New York City Comptroller:

Dear Neighbor:

Thank you for your concern regarding the recent proposals to open Wal-Mart stores in New York City. I agree that this is not the answer to our City’s economic problems, and I am concerned by the company’s poor track record regarding the treatment of its employees and its devastating effect on local businesses.  Small businesses are the life-blood of our City and as the Chair of the City Council’s Small Business Committee, I will fight against the development of new Wal-Mart stores that bring more harm than good to a community.

Moreover, I strongly support passing the Employee Free Choice Act. This legislation would be an important safeguard against employee abuses.  The Employee Free Choice Act would promote better working conditions and benefits for those who need it most:  New York’s working families.  I will continue to support this legislation and employee rights whenever I have the opportunity to do so. Thank you again for your interest.

Sincerely,
David Yassky
Council Member, 33rd District

We’ll keep updating you as we continue to get more responses. Until then, you can check out more on Wal-Mart’s Urban Problem here. What these cities need now are jobs that pay a living wage, good health benefits that keep people healthy and productive (and off public health care), and thriving small businesses that give back to their communities. Wal-Mart need not apply.

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Wal-Mart workers from across the nation are converging today on Capitol Hill for a National Organizing Meeting to brief Senators about wages, benefits and the Employee Free Choice Act. We have Wal-Mart Watch peeps down on the Hill, and will have more updates as the day goes on.

Wal-Mart Workers Holding Historic National Organizing Meeting [UFCW Release via EarthTimes]

WASHINGTON - (Business Wire) Walmart workers from across the nation are converging today on Capitol Hill for a National Organizing Meeting to brief Senators about wages, benefits and the Employee Free Choice Act. Nearly 100 Walmart workers from 17 states are participating in the event. As part of their campaign for a union voice on the job, they will urge lawmakers to level the playing field for working people by supporting the Employee Free Choice Act.

“I made the trip into Washington DC to stand with my fellow Walmart workers and to urge my Senators to pass the Employee Free Choice Act,” said Dominique Sloan a Dallas, Texas, Walmart worker. “We need change in this country. All you have to do is look at how all the money goes to CEOs. But when it comes to workers, it’s always the same, no health care or health care that’s too expensive and low wages. We need to change that.”

The National Organizing Committee is made up of Walmart workers from Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Below, Al Norman writes on the State of Massachusetts’ multi-million dollar health care handout to Wal-Mart, also published on our Battlemart Blog:

Two years ago, Wal-Mart workers and their children cost the taxpayers of Massachusetts $7.2 million for subsidized health care. A new report released this past week shows that this tax subsidy has more than doubled to $15.5 million. In the middle of one of the worst budget crises in state history, health are welfare for large national chain stores are a drag on the state and federal taxpayer.

On February 12, 2007, Sprawl-Busters reported that an annual report released by the Massachusetts Division of Health Care Finance and Policy, revealed that state taxpayers in the Commonwealth spent $7,223,580.77 to provide subsidized health care insurance for Wal-Mart workers—the highest cost any employer shifted to the state. The study, “The Use of Public Health Assistance in Massachusetts in FY 2006: Employers Who Have Fifty or More Employees Using MassHealth or the Uncompensated Care Pool,” is the third such analysis of employers who have 50 more workers using public health assistance. A state law passed in 2004 requires the state to produce such studies. The report released in 2007 covered the period July 1, 2005 to June 30, 2006.

The analysis estimates that in FY 2006, a total of $234.2 million in public funds were spent on health care for employees and their dependents working for employers who had 50 or more employees subsidized by two major state health care programs: Medicaid and the Uncompensated Care Pool. The state reports estimates that a total of 6,070 Wal-Mart employees and dependents are costing state taxpayers $7.223 million a year. Of that total, 1,038 Wal-Mart employees used the Uncompensated Care Pool, 2,079 Wal-Mart employees were on Medicaid, and 2,953 dependents of Wal-Mart employees, mostly children, used benefits paid for by Medicaid. The cost of Wal-Mart dependents alone came to $4,328,155. According to Wal-Mart, the retailer had 10,785 employees in Massachusetts. Using the FY 2006 figure of 3,117 Wal-Mart workers on Medicaid and UCP, that means at least 29% of Wal-Mart’s workforce in the Baystate received their health care subsidized by the public.

Read the rest of this story ...

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Wal-Mart’s health care issues obviously go back quite some time. Nationally, 64% of workers in very large firms (5,000 employees or more) receive their health benefits from their employer. And Wal-Mart? Wal-Mart typically covers only 50% of its employees. Twenty-five states have tracked and reported the number of employees and dependents that the largest employers within their borders have enrolled in state-funded health care programs. Where does Wal-Mart rank in those states? Across the board Wal-Mart is at the head of the line for public assistance.

Despite these negatives, Politico says Wal-Mart is looking to throw its economic might into the health care ring:

Wal-Mart is ramping up its Washington activity to push for comprehensive health care reform, and the world’s largest retailer says it is ready to use its economic muscle to get out in front and influence the discussion.

That’s probably a good thing, as anything but the status quo would be a positive development. And we know Wal-Mart and its employees are familiar with using public health care. Michael Hicks, an economist at the Air Force Institute of Technology at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio, conducted a study analyzing state Medicaid data from 1978 to 2003 - he found that Wal-Mart causes an increase in state Medicaid spending by as much as $898 per person. That sounds extreme, yet consider the example from Wal-Mart’s home state of Arkansas, where 3,971 of Wal-Mart’s 45,106 employees are on public assistance. That’s basically one in eleven employees taking advantage of public assistance, so no wonder the costs to taxpayers are high.

Still, Politico argues that Wal-Mart has made some gains recently - including offering a broader range of lower-cost insurance options and pushing for electronic health records - and notes that SEIU could be moving towards cautiously optimistic status:

“As the largest private corporation, they do have the ability to set a standard to providing good jobs with good health care,” said SEIU spokeswoman Lori Lodes. “Right now they are at the table, and they have a very strong commitment to reforming our health care system.”

Whether the reform Wal-Mart ultimately seeks ends up being a positive will remain a HUGE question mark for a while. In the meantime, Wal-Mart has announced that only 3 percent of the company’s employees are now on state assistance. So, only about 45 THOUSAND employees nationwide. So, you know...just a few.

Wal-Mart lends muscle to health reform [Politico]

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Labor officials are praising ol’ President Obama’s first signed piece of legislation.

“We are heartened that this legislation was made a top priority of the new Congress and administration, because it demonstrates a return to the common-sense values of hard-working Americans,” AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said in a written statement.

The legislation, titled the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, focuses on Ledbetter v. Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co., [550 U.S. 618 (2007)], a Supreme Court decision holding that regardless of when a worker discovers a pay disparity, any legal action needs to be filed within 180 days of the initial decision to pay the worker less. For Lilly Ledbetter, an employee at Goodyear Tire and Rubber for over 19 years, she didn’t realize she was getting a lower salary and lower pay raises then her male counterparts until after she left the company - and only then because an anonymous note was left in her mailbox.

The court said Ledbetter couldn’t sue under the 1964 Civil Rights Act because the alleged discrimination occurred more than 180 days before she filed her claim. The law signed today restarts the clock for bringing claims each time a worker’s job is affected by a discriminatory act. In Ledbetter’s case, that would be each time she receives a pay check.

Corporate labor lawyer Lawrence Lorber (say that 3 times fast) pointed out that the Lilly Ledbetter Act may be just a prelude to what Labor is really interested in - passage of the Employee Free Choice Act, which would make it easier for workers to form unions.

“The Ledbetter bill is the lowest-hanging fruit of all the items on labor’s agenda,” Lorber said. “The victory is not necessarily a harbinger of what will happen on Employee Free Choice, which could be World War Four between labor and business.”

You can read President Obama’s statement on the legislation, and check out Lilly Ledbetter’s Obama campaign ad here…

Obama Signs Lilly Ledbetter Act [Washington Post]

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Just catching up on more stories from the holiday season. This from West Virginia - a whole gaggle of new tax laws will be taking effect in the new year are designed to save businesses money and create jobs? Sounds like there must be a catch, right?

According to State Tax Commissioner Christopher Morris, both the business franchise tax and the corporate net income tax rates are being lowered under the changes. In addition, businesses can get tax credits for creating jobs that are full-time, pay at least $32,000 and offer health benefits. Companies are limited in the number of created jobs they can can receive tax credits for, but every little bit helps, right? C’mon Wal-Mart...we know West Virginia is now a combined reporting state, so you can’t pull your little tax shenanigans there anymore, so why not create a few new full-time jobs, throw in some benefits, and save a little money in the process?

W.Va. Businesses Expected to Save Money Under New Tax Laws [WSAZ NewsChannel 3]

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subrogation - n. assuming the legal rights of a person for whom expenses or a debt has been paid.

Subrogation, and the story of former Wal-Mart employee Debbie Shank, broke into the news with a vengeance just a little over one year ago after Wal-Mart Watch brought her story to the attention of the Wall Street Journal. A collision with a semi-trailer truck eight years ago left Debbie Shank permanently brain-damaged and in a wheelchair. Hoping to help cover Debbie’s nursing home costs, her husband Jim sued the trucking company that hit her. The family won a modest settlement, after which Jim received a call from Wal-Mart’s attorneys. Wal-Mart’s health plan, through a little-known clause in its health plan, sued the Shanks for the $470,000 it had spent on her medical care, and a federal judge ruled in Wal-Mart’s favor. And hence, the issue of subrogation and the Shanks became a national story in both print and broadcast media across the country.

The story ends, or at least has settled, on a more positive note. On April 1, 2008, Wal-Mart dropped all pending litigation against the Shank family. Thanks in part to the hundreds of people who wrote in to the company, as well of the contribution of many major news outlets, Debbie’s family will keep the money currently being held in trust for her future care, though how long that will last remains to be seen.

The story has now added another chapter, however. Individuals suffering catastrophic injuries like those that resulted from Debbie’s violent traffic collision will no longer have to worry about the threat of subrogation. Wal-Mart Watch has confirmed that Wal-Mart’s 2009 health care plan exempts the company’s right to subrogate against a covered person completely in cases of: 1) paraplegia or quadriplegia; 2) severe burns; 3) total and permanent physical or mental disability; or 4) death. In all other cases, the plan also limits the right to recover to 50% of a settlement (Including attorney’s fees).

You can read our press release after the jump. At the bottom you’ll find links to Wal-Mart’s 2008 benefits plan, plus the 2009 amendments.

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Since the issue of Wal-Mart has been surprisingly muted this campaign season (Wal-Mart Moms?), the retailer has decided to inject itself into the campaign ad fray. Both Obama and McCain have videos running on Wal-Mart’s corporate website. You can find them both here.

Here’s a little summary of the main points of each of the campaign messages you can find on walmartstores.com:

Obama:

Our economy is in crisis, we have two wars, and the American dream is slipping away (starting out on a positive note...nice)
We’re going to fix it by giving a $1,000 tax break to the middle class (YAY!!!! More money to spend at Wal-Mart!!!)
We’re going to allow workers to organize, for better wages, health care, benefits (Organize, YAY...wait, what?!)

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Wal-Mart’s wholly-owned UK subsidiary, Asda, has just spent over $180,000 launching two websites recruiting employees for its stores. Unlike in the U.S., where Wal-Mart is essentially unrivaled, the U.K. retail market is extremely competitive for Asda, and the store must be having trouble hiring and retaining employees. We can’t imagine that the company’s notoriously bad labor practices have anything to do with it.

The video above, taken from one of Asda’s new websites, discusses the benefits of working at Asda (read the transcript here (PDF)). Let’s take a look at just what those benefits are.

1. “It’s not just your salary or your car allowance at all.” Benefit number one: we will pay you!

2. “We get a benefits book which gives us all our discounts on theme parks and car parking at airports and things like that, just because you work at ASDA.”
Who needs a living wage when you can get a dollar off at the airport parking garage?

3. “I think my favourite benefit at ASDA is the Sharesave Scheme.” That is, just like everyone else in the capitalist system, employees are entitled to buy shares of the company stock. In fact, we’d love it if you did: the executives’ yachts aren’t going to repaint themselves.

Read the rest of this story ...

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For those of you who’ve seen Wal-Mart’s training videos, this new short from American Rights at Work will ring particularly true.

I don’t know about you, but that bottle of soda does look pretty enticing.

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In the most recent report from Policy Matters Ohio, Wal-Mart tops the list of Ohio employers with the most employees receiving government health care assistance. According to Wal-Mart, these rankings are “notoriously unreliable” and hard to verify. However, when you consider that Wal-Mart tops the list in every state where the information is available, they start to look reliable. Why do taxpayers have to pick up Wal-Mart’s health care tab?

With high deductibles and coverage limitations, Wal-Mart’s health care is inadequate.
The Wal-Mart average for full-time workers to qualify for benefits is six months, compared to the retail average of three months. Part time employees must wait a full year before receiving benefits. Since the majority of workers do not stay a year, the majority never get health care.

Wal-Mart workers often earn too little to afford health care.
To get a plan with a $700 deductible and $4000 out-of-pocket medical expenses still costs $7000 a year and the average Wal-Mart employee makes approximately 20,000 a year.

Ohio is not unique; Wal-Mart workers in other states must use public assistance programs to meet their health care needs.
In states that have released data on companies with employees receiving state-funded health care, Wal-Mart tops the list. Twenty-four states have tracked and reported the number of employees and dependants that the largest employers within their borders have enrolled in state-funded health care programs, and in those states, Wal-Mart is at the head of the line for public assistance. In all states that have released such data - Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin - Wal-Mart tops the list.

Click here to download “Wal-Mart’s New Health Plan: Medicaid”

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Is this the end of the Tom Coughlin vs. Wal-Mart legal saga?

Whether Wal-Mart wanted it publicly known or not, its terms of settlement with Tom Coughlin have been posted online. Tom Coughlin was was convicted of embezzling money from the company, but was still fighting to receive his $17 million benefits package. Jury selection was to begin today for the trial, which looked to possibly drag on and bring the company a barrage of unwanted press.

$6.75 Million in retirement benefits, even though you stole from the company - that ain’t bad. We can think of a lot of Wal-Mart employees who deserve it more.

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An AP story today highlights efforts in several states to pass legislation requiring employers to offer paid sick leave to workers.

When asked in the article, Wal-Mart takes no position on proposed federal sick leave legislation, and quotes spokeswoman E.R. Anderson as saying Wal-Mart “feels good” about the company’s sick leave policy. 

Technically, Wal-Mart does offer paid sick leave to full-time employees - but the company’s policy is certainly nothing to “feel good” about.

Some of the less feel-good details about Wal-Mart’s sick leave policy:

- It is only valid for full-time employees. Wal-Mart refuses to tell us the percentage of workers who are full-time and part-time, but it reasonable to assume that well over 40% (560,000) are part-time and therefore ineligible for any paid sick time. It’s also safe to assume that whatever the percentage of part-time associates is, that number is growing. Going back to the 2005 Chambers Memo, Wal-Mart has made clear its intention to shift more of its workforce to part time to cut down on the cost of benefits.

- Even full-time associates must wait 6 months to be eligible for any paid sick time, whereafter employees accrue one half of one day of paid sick time a month - which is only 6 days per year.

- We’ve heard reports from SEVERAL employees that managers required them to miss two days to take one day of sick leave. Basically, if an employee was out one day and called in sick, he/she would be forced to take unpaid leave - unless he/she missed at least two consecutive days, in which they could start receiving pay on the second missed day. So for these employees, even those who are full time and eligible for the policy, Wal-Mart REQUIRES them to take unpaid leave.

Wal-Mart Executives probably feel a lot better about that than their employees do.

More to come on this issue.