Monday, November 21, 2005
Slow to React but Reacting Nonetheless
Wal-Mart memo proposes cost cuts by not hiring unhealthy people, by not keeping longer employees on staff, by hiring more part-time workers.
To discourage unhealthy people from applying the memo calls for a bogus physical activity like "cart-gathering". And less than 45 percent of Wal-Mart employees have company health insurance coverage now but it gets worse.
Here's a link to the PDF and another to the PDF as HTML (both are NY Times links and may require a BugMeNot or registration). Or, no wait, here's a link to my own version of the HTML'ed PDF file (which may not format or render in a pretty way but it should work without having to open Adobe, so there!). WalMartMemo.htm
Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart
To discourage unhealthy people from applying the memo calls for a bogus physical activity like "cart-gathering". And less than 45 percent of Wal-Mart employees have company health insurance coverage now but it gets worse.
The memo also proposed that employees pay more for their spouses' health insurance, called for cutting the company's 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and for cutting company-paid life insurance policies.
The memo acknowledged that Wal-Mart, the world's largest retailer, had to walk a fine line in restraining benefits because critics attacked it for being stingy on wages and health coverage. Chambers in the memo acknowledged 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid.
Here's a link to the PDF and another to the PDF as HTML (both are NY Times links and may require a BugMeNot or registration). Or, no wait, here's a link to my own version of the HTML'ed PDF file (which may not format or render in a pretty way but it should work without having to open Adobe, so there!). WalMartMemo.htm
Tags: Wal-Mart, WalMart
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