Date: 2005-10-26
Speaker: GEORGE MILLER (democrat)
Chamber: H
State: California

Mr. Speaker. this morning the New York Times reported an absolutely shocking story. The Times published an internal memo from WalMart written earlier this year. The contents of that memo are stunning. The memo. penned by WalMarts executive vice president for benefits. is concerned with employee benefits. namely how to cut the cost of benefits while improving WalMarts public relations. In other words. the memo laid out a scheme whereby WalMart will make life worse for working people. while appearing to do good. It focused on cosmetic improvements to WalMarts image and real damage to WalMarts employees. -First of all. the memo admits that WalMarts critics are onto something. The memo states that WalMarts health care plan. for example. is expensive for lowincome families. and WalMart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance. The memo states that 46 percent of children of WalMart employees are either on Medicaid or uninsured. It reveals that in 2004. 38 percent of WalMarts employees enrolled in the company health plan spent more than 16 percent of the average Wal* Mart income on health care. Next. the memo goes on to complain that too many workers are sticking around too long. driving up labor costs. The thanks that these loyal employees get from WalMart is a plan by WalMart to get rid of them. According to the memo. WalMart is seeking to cut its labor costs by switching to more parttime employees who will not have meaningful access to the company health care plan. So while WalMart announces to the public that they are going to offer the best health care plan they can for their employees. they are secretly redesigning their work force so those who work for them will not be able to take advantage of the health care plan that they have announced. The memo also suggests that WalMart can cut its labor costs by keeping less healthy employees out of the workforce. It even suggests that they should include physical lifting requirements in the cashier job. just so that the company can use that requirement as an excuse not to hire unhealthy people. The memo saysthat the top WalMart officials received the recommendation enthusiastically. And. guess what? We are starting to see those changes take place. Earlier this. week WalMart announced a new health care plan for employees. including a highdeductible plan with health savings accounts. What does the memo say about this? It recommends plans with highdeductibles and health savings accounts in order to attract low utilizers. that is a euphemism for healthier people. and discourage employment of high utilizers. the euphemism for sick people. The question is often asked. is WalMart bad for America? The companys own executive vice president has answered that question. The memo speaks for itself. Madam Speaker. what WalMart is saying here is that the benefit that they have announced to their employees as being new and expansive it turns out is no benefit at all. You must work 1 year before you qualify. -and yet WalMart plans to get rid of those people who have worked that length of time. WalMart plans to hire more parttime people so they will not qualify for the health care plan. Should they hire somebody that qualifies for it. they want to be able to discriminate in their hiring against somebody who may have a health care problem. and. therefore. they do not want to hire them. so they will make up a test that that person has to go through. go around collecting shopping carts or lifting things so that they can root those people out of the selection process for whom they would hire. So WalMart then says that this is the discriminatory policy that they want to follow. What this showsis that WalMart in the last couple of days has announced a new energy policy. they announced a new health care policy. they said they support an increase in the minimum wage. that it would help their businesses. and people started to say. what is this? Is this an extreme makeover for WalMart? Have they come to their senses whereby they recognize their obligations to their employees. their obligations to the Earths environment. their obligations on energy policy? Has WalMart finally become responsible? No. this is not an extreme makeover. This is a cosmetic nip and tuck. This is a cosmetic redo of a policy that is no policy at all. because. apparently. WalMart has already designed. as this memo points out. the means by which they will not have to invoke the benefits of the health policy for their employees. This is damning evidence. but what it means. if we thought that this was going to be maybe a new WalMart. a WalMart that would be welcome to communities rather than fought by communities. what this means is. in fact. that that is not the case at all. WalMart is going to continue their policy of everyday low wages. of everyday no health care. of everyday ruination of the environment. of everyday mistreatment of their workers. That is the WalMart policy. That is the WalMart policy that caused them to violate labor laws over and over again. to discriminate against their employees over and over again. to abuse the women employees over and over again. That is the record of WalMart. This was a false sunrise. This was a false sense that somehow WalMart had started to accept its responsibility towards its employees. In fact. once .again. it is going to abuse its employees. Sadly so. that is the case..