In The Economist of 25 Aug 2005, A “Going global” feature looked at the issue of “Workers of the world attempt to unite against Wal-Mart” (login required, I think). The report is of a meeting of some of the world’s biggest trade unions, who are (not for the first time) seriously considering becoming single global unions. This is especially needed, in their opinion, to deal with massive mulit-national organisations.
“GLOBAL companies need global unions,â€? says Noel Howell, a spokesman for the Union Network International (UNI), a federation of 900 trades unions from 150 countries. It is hard to think of a single global firm that would agree. Certainly not Wal-Mart, the world’s biggest retailer with 1.6m workers, 1.2m of them in America. It says that unionisation is not “rightâ€? for Wal-Mart, at least in America, and that unions “do not want us to succeedâ€?.
The UNI held a congress in Chicago this week with the supposed need to unionise Wal-Mart as a main theme. (Four other firms—DHL, an express delivery company, Walt Disney, Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation and Ikea, a Swedish furniture store—were identified as future targets.) Wal-Mart is leading a “race to the bottomâ€? in wages and benefits, the UNI claimed, and other big firms would follow by choice or necessity. According to a study last year by the University of California, Berkeley, wages at Wal-Mart were so low that taxpayers in California alone footed an $86m bill for health benefits and other assistance claimed by Wal-Mart employees.
Watch this space. This is just the beginning…
Workers of the world unite
Great that you brought this issue up…I just read this info:
In 2003 Walmart spent $1.3 billion of its $256 billion in revenue on employee health care. This insured about 45% of its workforce (537,000 people). At Walmart full-time employees have to wait 6 months for insurance benefits and part-time employees have to wait 2 years. The average full-time employee makes $1200 per month. Walmart health insurance benefits require employees to pay monthly premiums on health insurance that can reach over $260 per month (over 20% of montly income). Out of pocket expenses can at times reach $13,000 for health care.
In Georgia more than 10,000 children of Walmart employees relied on the state’s healthcare program (not Walmart health insurance) at a cost of $10 million to Georgia taxpayers. In addition, in North Carolina, 31% of 1900 patients who described themselves as “Walmart employees” were on medicaid.
Lastly…to make this even worse, if it could be listed as such…Walmart is China’s 8th largest trading partner, ahead of Russia, Australia, and Canada. Considering the excellent Health Care benefits Canada provides its citizens, you would think that if Walmart wants to continue to be a leader it might start acting like one.
Walmart thinks that size = might = market dominance.
That’s what I love about where things are heading. Huge bullies are being squeezed out of the playground by the little guys who are starting to realize the influence of collective power.
If a company respects each employee as an individual, and a valuable one, then they have nothing to fear, But if their sole aim is to make the bottom line look great and keep shareholders happy while their employees become disposable numbers….