their audacity never ceases to amaze me!

Wal-Mart memo: Unhealthy need not apply
Report: Document sent to retailer's board by VP seeks ways to cut health care, benefit costs.
October 26, 2005: 9:10 AM EDT



NEW YORK (Reuters) - An internal memo sent to the Wal-Mart Stores Inc. board proposes numerous ways to hold down health care and benefits costs with less harm to the retailer's reputation, including hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from seeking jobs, the New York Times said Wednesday.

The paper said the draft memo to Wal-Mart's board was obtained from Wal-Mart Watch, a pressure group allied with labor unions that says Wal-Mart's pay and benefits are too low.

The paper said in the memorandum Susan Chambers, Wal-Mart's executive vice president for benefits, also recommends reducing 401(k) pension contributions and wooing younger, and presumably healthier, workers by offering education benefits.

The memo is quoted as expressing concern that workers with seven years' seniority earn more than workers with one year's seniority, but are no more productive, said the paper, which posted the memo on its Web site

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, the paper said, Chambers suggests Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering),"

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.

Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs, the paper said.

The proposed plan, if approved, would save the company more than $1 billion a year by 2011, the paper said.

In an interview, Ms. Chambers said she was focusing not on cutting costs, but on serving employees better by giving them more choices on their benefits. Chambers also said that she made her recommendations after surveying employees about how they felt about the benefits plan.

One proposal would reduce the amount of time, from two years to one, that part-time employees would have to wait before qualifying for health insurance. Another would put health clinics in stores, in part to reduce expensive employee visits to emergency rooms.

Wal-Mart's benefit costs jumped to $4.2 billion last year, from $2.8 billion three years earlier. Last year Wal-Mart earned $10.5 billion on sales of $285 billion.

Under fire because less than 45 percent of its workers receive company health insurance, Wal-Mart announced a new plan Monday that seeks to increase participation by allowing some employees to pay just $11 a month in premiums.

When you are the worlds BIGGEST retailer and employ as many people as Walmart does...they OWE it to the workers to offer the best practices and lead by example.

7 year seniority vs 1 year senoirity people who don't do more work but are paid more??? WTF is this woman thinking? I mean are people supposed to incrementally do more as they get more? What about inflation...what about loyalty to the company? These people get paid crap as it is. Sometime Walmart is the ONLY job for the people that are employed there because A walmart opening destroyed other jobs.

Cutting 401K etc...

What's next no hiring for the disabled?

yeah well at this point i hate them too. just found out that our store will not be getting a bonus this year. but u can be sure that dickhead of a store manager will get his normal $50 to $100,000.... when he announced it at the meeting it was all i could not to choke the shit out of him.
FUCK THEM and their new pay raises. kiss my ass and when target comes closer. eat my shorts cuz im leavin!

Is that NOT discrimination?

But ASDA is so cheap.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

But, on the upside, that means that the people working at Wal-Mart should be slimmer, more fit, and perhaps better looking. Maybe I'll start going to Wal-Mart more often.

superspaceboy said:

it's a disgrace. and we're not even talking about any of the corporate welfare companies like this get from our government, i.e., from our tax dollars. i haven't shopped at a Wal-Mart in years - make your money do the talking!

heyduckie said:

Costco, from what i understand, puts Wal-Mart to shame with their pay rates and benefits. it doesn't HAVE to be like this!

BinaryJustin said:

well, and now you know why.

JACKAL said:

tell us what you find out!

BinaryJustin said:

I use to work in asda


God, it was so lame. The interviews were stupidly detailed and long affairs, and the workers had to be happy the whole time. It was so cheesy american bullshit. "all smiles" and all that. Ha, the meet and greet bloke i knew was too funny. We would annoy him for ages. He would get annoyed.....

i love walmart. They're store is way better than target anyday. I tried to quit walmart for the others but found myself going back. Besides they donated 25 million to katrina fund. What have Target donated. Nothing. Also, no one is forcing those people to work at walmart. They did it by choice.

saintsation said:

did you even read the article?

They're going to have a hard time finding employees... Most Americans are frightfully unhealthy.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

Hmmm... I think that all the Wal-Mart employees in the U.S. should speak to their counterparts in the U.K.

http://www.personnelzone....DA005C4C61

The article states that:

ASDA are actively recruiting over-50s as they're less prone to absenteeism. ASDA employs 22,357 people aged 50 or over;
In 2003 it was named Britain's top company for flexible working;
School starter scheme - a unique scheme that allows parents to take a half day holiday on their child's first day at school;
Emergency family leave - Reasonable time off to deal with family emergencies;
Generous colleague discount card;
One of Britain's biggest share schemes.

It sounds like a picnic.

BinaryJustin said:

pardon my ignorance, but what is the connection between ASDA and Wal-Mart?

IrresistibleB1tch said:

They are the same (partner) company in the UK. I am not sure what quite happened but all the big supermarkets effectively blocked wallmart from striding into the UK and becoming number 1. So i think it bought into ASDA and will probably enter through the back door.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

Wal-Mart owns ASDA in the U.K. ASDA (formerly known as Associated Dairies) is basically the British "face" of Wal-Mart.

http://www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=800

IrresistibleB1tch said:

I'll report back with my findings. Hopefully, I'll be publishing "Sexy Girl of Wal-Mart" by the end of next year.

JACKAL said:

i did notice you were using the singular here...

IrresistibleB1tch said:

I'm not a very optimistic person.

IrresistibleB1tch said:

BTW, . Hope you're doing well.

JACKAL said:

will there be a male version of the calendar as well? and will it be sold at Target?

JACKAL said:

doing great, thanks - hope you are!

IrresistibleB1tch said:

Will it be kind of like the firemen calendar?

All I saw when I worked at Wal-Mart were kind of grungy but sort of cute guys working in electronics, and I'm not sure I'd care too see them with their clothes off.

Heiress said:

well, since i like 'em fat...

IrresistibleB1tch said:

These guys were more like too thin...

Heiress said:

IrresistibleB1tch said:

Yes i did read the article, whats wrong with that. What company not doing crazy drastic things these days.