A Kinder, Gentler Wal-Mart?
By Denise Best | Related entries in Blogging, Corporate BusinessOne more reason to give the Walmart cheer?
Surprising news, especially given skyrocketing health care costs, the number of companies recently announcing cuts to their health plans, and Wal-Mart’s less than stellar reputation to date in the area of employee benefits.
Wal-Mart, which has long been criticized for the benefits it offers to its workers, is introducing a cheaper health insurance plan, with monthly premiums as low as $11, that the company hopes will greatly increase the number of its employees who can afford coverage.
Jumping into a new area, Wal-Mart is also offering health savings accounts, which the federal government introduced last year. Few employers offer them.
The new benefits, which Wal-Mart calls the Value Plan, follow years of complaints that at Wal-Mart, the nation’s largest employer, health insurance is out of reach for many of its 1.2 million workers in the United States, forcing thousands of them to turn to state-sponsored programs or forgo health coverage altogether.
Between this latest news and the amount contributed to hurricane relief, Wal-Mart is sure to be riding high in the positive PR department.
Geez, before you know it, they’ll be going soft on their supply chain partners too.
Wonder if this is the beginning of the end to “Everyday Low Pricing?”
This entry was posted on Monday, October 24th, 2005 and is filed under Blogging, Corporate Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
October 24th, 2005 at 11:37 pm
So, is Wal-Mart actually letting employees call themselves ‘employees’ now?
October 26th, 2005 at 11:21 am
No surprise that they are scrambling to make changes to their employee benefit plans. I wouldn’t give them too much credit though. To me, it’s obvious that they’re doing this to try to win back some points since many people have become quite displeased with the way Wal-Mart has treated it’s workers (especially women) for the past several years.
And, given “sky-rocketing health care costs” and sky-rocketing everything costs, I think what they did was not much at all. They could afford to do much, much better and everyone knows it. Those of us who are not real thrilled with Wal-Mart will have to see a lot more on their part before we will be shopping there.
October 29th, 2005 at 10:52 am
There’s nothing to cheer about with Wal-Mart, you have just fallen for their PR campaign…
http://ultramookie.com/wayback/2005/10/26/another-sickening-reason-not-to-shop-at-wal-mart/
Now there is something to open your eyes to what Wal-Mart is really about…
“The memo proposes to save Wal-Mart one billion dollars by hiring more part-time workers and discouraging unhealthy people from seeking jobs. It also proposes that employees pay more for their spouses’ health insurance, cutting the company’s 401(k) contributions to 3 percent of wages from 4 percent and cutting company-paid life insurance policies.”
October 29th, 2005 at 2:36 pm
Eventually all these companies who try to screw their employees will be called out onto the mat and revise their strategies. This time it’s Wal-Mart. Next time it’ll be some other corporation. I’m just glad to see a little progress.
December 8th, 2005 at 8:41 pm
I hope walmart works to improve health insurance benefits for employees.
June 18th, 2008 at 8:23 pm
Any time you see the word “value” associated with healthcare…it is generally a stripped-down coverage. But in fairness…that’s better than nothing!
Ed Harris
Ohio broker 27 years
Pretty decent tennis player too…
http://ohiohealthinsuranceplans.wordpress.com/
June 19th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I completely agree with WalMartGuy, this article is exactly what Wal-Mart WANTS you to say, but they’ve changed little. I work with WakeUpWalMart.com, check out what we had to say about the “new” healtchare plan:
On a day that Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott got a $4.28 million dollar bonus, Wal-Mart called a conference call to discuss a survey it conducted on its healthcare plan. On the call, it was announced that Scott has the same healthcare plan as a part-time Wal-Mart cashier.
It’s no surprise Lee Scott is on the Wal-Mart health care plan - it’s a plan only a well-compensated CEO could love. With a new five million dollar bonus, Lee Scott doesn’t have to worry about the high deductibles or premiums that come along with so many of the retail giant’s healthcare plans, but average workers do. The fact is nearly twenty percent of Wal-Mart workers have no coverage at all, or rely on state funded programs for their care. That means taxpayers across the country continue to pay too high a price for Wal-Mart’s refusal to put forth a plan all of its workers can afford.