Wal-Mart Sets Low Standard for Wages, Health Care Coverage
The grocery chains attempts to slash workers’ health coverage signals a new
race to the bottom in job-based health care for America’s working
families—one precipitated by corporate giants such as Wal-Mart that make
health coverage unaffordable for most of its workers.

According to a new AFL-CIO report, low wages combined with high costs make
Wal-Mart’s health coverage unaffordable for 46 percent of its low-paid
workers. In 2001, Wal-Mart workers had to pay between 41 percent and 47 percent
of the total cost of the company health plan, while similar employees at other
large companies paid 16 percent of the total premium for single coverage and 25
percent for family coverage.

“These strikes are not just about UFCW members, because if the giant
supermarket chains can kill health care in southern California, then all
employers will feel that they can get away with eliminating benefits,” says
UFCW President Douglas Dority.

To hold the line on health care, Morga today joined other southern California
UFCW workers at a Washington, D.C., press conference where union leaders,
including AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney and UFCW President Douglas Dority
joined to demonstrate their commitment and support for the striking and
locked-out workers under a union-movement-wide banner: Hold the Line for
America’s Health Care.

“In a time when employers are routinely trying to shift the burden of health
care unto working families’ shoulders, these workers are holding the line for
quality, affordable care for all of America,” says Sweeney. “This is an
extremely important struggle, not only for union members, but for every
community in this nation—by taking on their workers, these big, profitable
companies are taking on all of America.”
Joining Sweeney and Dority were Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and
Grain Millers President Frank Hurt, Machinists President Thomas Buffenbarger,
SEIU President Andrew Stern and community leaders such as Wade Henderson,
executive director of Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, and Kim Gandy,
president of the National Organization of Women.