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Politics : Sioux Nation -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (7900)	2/21/2005 4:43:47 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361241

You're disgusting.

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (7900)	2/21/2005 4:47:07 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 361241

think about this, moron...Oct. 21—Even as Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, markets its all-American image, the way the giant retailer treats its employees is downright un-American, offering a company health insurance plan most cannot afford on Wal-Mart’s poverty-level pay, according to a new AFL-CIO study. As retail stores across the nation struggle to compete with Wal-Mart, one of a growing number of large companies denying workers affordable health coverage, Wal-Mart’s low-wage, low-road practices also threaten to undermine such family-supportive health plans as those covering the tens of thousands of grocery store workers now on strike. Wal-Mart’s bottom-of-the-barrel wages averaging $7.50 to $8.50 an hour leave workers well below the federal poverty line for three- or four-person families, according to Wal-Mart: An Example of Why Workers Remain Uninsured and Underinsured. These low wages, combined with high health insurance payments, make health coverage unaffordable for 46 percent of Wal-Mart workers. In 2001, Wal-Mart workers paid between 41 percent and 47 percent of the total cost of the company health plan, while similar employees at large companies pay 16 percent of the total premium for single coverage and 25 percent for family coverage. "As Wal-Mart continues to leech off communities, forcing taxpayers and workers to pick up health care costs, it does tremendous damage as it drives other companies to do the same," says AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney. Unionized grocery workers typically make between $12 and $14 an hour, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers, and usually do not have to pay toward health insurance premiums. “The health insurance participation gap between Wal-Mart and the typical large employer appears to result, in part, from Wal-Mart’s benefit policies, which specifically deny employees coverage or make it relatively expensive for many of them to purchase coverage,” the report finds. Wal-Mart’s Low Standards: A Threat to Family-Supportive Wages and Health Coverage As Wal-Mart increasingly competes directly with union grocery stores and retailers that pay family-supportive wages and offer affordable quality health plans, the 90,000 UFCW members now on strike at grocery chains in California and elsewhere over employer demands for big health benefit cuts understand the threat Wal-Mart poses. In February, Wal-Mart plans to open its first California grocery and super-center—the first of 40 it plans to open in the state over the next five years. “That the Wal-Mart model could be the model for other employees raises concerns for all of us,” says the AFL-CIO report. Workers at large corporations such as Wal-Mart are coming up against growing barriers to affordable health care coverage. A ground-breaking study released today by the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund finds the share of workers without health insurance employed by large firms rose from 25 percent to 32 percent between 1987 and 2001. Wal-Mart Workers Face Multiple Barriers to Getting Health Care Getting covered under the Wal-Mart plan is “only part of the story,” the AFL-CIO report cautions. Even if they can afford the plan, workers face significant gaps in coverage, ranging from “lack of insurance for important preventive care to big out-of-pocket expenses.” For instance, the report finds the Wal-Mart plan does not cover childhood immunizations for diseases such as measles, mumps, rubella and tetanus—all recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics as “the best available defense against many dangerous childhood diseases.” Nonsupervisory workers also must wait months and even years to get on Wal-Mart’s health plan. While Wal-Mart managers are eligible to buy into the plan on their date of hire, full-time workers must wait six months. And part-time workers—with fewer than 34 hours, up from 28 hours prior to 2002—must wait two years. In comparison, the average waiting period at firms of 5,000 or more workers is just 1.3 months and 2.5 months at retailers generally, according to Employer Health Benefits: 2003 Annual Survey, by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Health Research and Educational Trust (KFF-HRET). On Jan. 14, as part of a UFCW Wal-Mart day of action, involving rallies at state capitols nationwide, union members will join with allies to protest Wal-Mart’s ongoing mistreatment of workers. And there is much to protest: In addition to providing its employees with low-wages and unaffordable health care, Wal-Mart faces nearly 40 lawsuits, including charges the company forces employees to work overtime without pay and discriminates against women. aflcio.org

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (7900)	2/21/2005 4:49:46 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 361241

Wal-Mart sales clerks made an average of $8.23 an hour—or $13,861 a year—in 2001. That's nearly $800 below the federal poverty line for a family of three. (Source: Business Week) In Georgia, Wal-Mart employees are six times more likely to rely on state-provided health care for their children than are employees of any other large company. (Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution) Reliance on public assistance programs in California by Wal-Mart workers costs the state's taxpayers an estimated $86 million annually. (Source: UC Berkeley Study) In the first decade after Wal-Mart arrived in Iowa, the state lost 555 grocery stores, 298 hardware stores, 293 building supply stores, 161 variety stores, 158 women's apparel stores, 153 shoe stores, 116 drugstores, and 111 men's and boys' apparel stores. (Source: Iowa State University Study) Every year Wal-Mart purchases $15 billion worth of products from China. (Source: Washington Post) Today Wal-Mart uses over 3,000 Chinese factories to produce its goods—almost as many factories as it has stores in the U.S. (3,600). (Source: L.A. Times) All else being equal, U.S. counties where new Wal-Mart stores were built between 1987 and 1998 experienced higher poverty rates than other U.S. counties. (Source: Pennsylvania State University Study)

To: Joe Btfsplk who wrote (7900)	2/21/2005 4:52:07 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 361241

This company runs ads featuring the United States flag and proclaims "We Buy American". In 2001 they moved their worldwide purchasing headquarters to China and are the largest importer of Chinese goods in the US, purchasing over $10 BILLION of Chinese-made products annually. Products made mostly by women and children working in the labor hell-holes China is famous for. * Their average employee working in the US makes $15,000 a year, $7.22 per hour! * These employees gross under $11,000 a year. * The company brags that 70% of their employees are full time, but fails to disclose that they count anyone working 28 hours a week or more as full time. * There are no health care benefits unless you have worked for the company for two years. * With a turnover rate averaging above 50% per year, only 38% of their 1.3 million employees have health care coverage. -In California alone it's estimated that the taxpayers pay over $20 million annually to subsidize health care benefits for these employees who get none from this behemoth corporation. * According to a report by PBS's "Now" with Bill Moyer, their managers are trained in what government social programs are available for these"employees" to take advantage of so that the company can pass on those costs to you and me. It allows them to not only keep their $7 BILLION in annual profits, but to do so by substituting benefits they refuse to provide with benefits paid for with taxpayer dollars. * This company holds the record for the most suits filed against it by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A lawyer from "Business Week" (not exactly the bastion for supporting Labor) said, "I have never seen this kind of blatant disregard for the law." They had to pay $750,000.00 in Arizona for blatant discrimination against the disabled! The judge was so incensed that he also order them to run commercials admitting their guilt. * The National Labor Relations Board has issued over 40 formal complaints against the corporation in 25 different states in just the past five years. The NLRB's top lawyer believed that their labor violations, such as Illegal spying on employees, fraudulent record keeping, falsifying time cards to avoid paying overtime, threats, illegal firings for union organizing etc., were so widespread that he was looking into filing a very rare national complaint against the company. (The company contributed $2,159,330.00 to GW Bush and the GOP in 2000 and 2002. The NLRB attorney was replaced when President Bush took office.). * Nearly 1 MILLION women are involved in the largest class-action suit every filed against a corporation. Although women make up over 65% of this corporations work force only 10% of them are managers. The women who have become store managers make $16,400 a year LESS then the men. * The corporation took out nearly 350,000 life insurance policies on their employees. They did not tell the employees and then named the corporation as the beneficiary. They are now being sued by numerous employees, and although the corporation has stopped this practice of purchasing what is known as "Dead Peasant Policy's", a company spokesperson stated, "The company feels it acted properly and legally in doing this." * They force employees to work after ordering them to punch out. In Texas alone this practice of "wage theft" is estimated to have cost employees $30 million per year. Wage theft or "off-the-clock" lawsuits are pending in 25 states. In New Mexico they paid $400,000.00 in one suit and in Colorado they had to pay $50 MILLION to settle one class-action case brought against them. In Oregon a jury found them guilty of locking employees in the building and of forcing unpaid overtime. * With 4,400 stores they practice "predatory pricing." They come into a community and sell their goods at below cost until they drive local businesses under. Once they have captured the market the prices go up. * Locally owned and operated businesses put virtually all of their money back into the community which helps keep the local economies vibrant. This corporation sucks the money out of the local community, decreases wages and benefits and ships the profits out of state. * This company doesn't buy locally or bank locally. They replace three decent paying jobs in a community with two poorly paid "part-timers". * In Kirksville, Missouri when this company came to town, four clothing stores, four grocery stores, a stationary store, a fabric store and a lawn-and-garden store all went under. Eleven businesses are now gone.