MADISON HEIGHTS, Mich., March 1 (UPI) -- More bad news for Wal-Mart: A Michigan union claims the retailer cost state taxpayers over $23 million in 2005.
Michigan's United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 876 said it is spearheading a nationwide effort dubbed "Wake Up Wal-Mart" to encourage more states to pass "fair share" laws like the one recently passed in Maryland.
The law requires firms with more than 10,000 workers to spend at least 8 percent of payroll on worker healthcare or else contribute to state Medicaid funds.
"Every day, the Wal-Mart health care crisis in America worsens. It's time Wal-Mart, a company with $11 billion in profits last year, stops exploiting taxpayers and its employees, and starts living up to its health care responsibilities," said Victoria Collins, president of UFCW Local 876.
"Wal-Mart's failure to provide affordable company health care to 57 percent, over 775,000, of its workers is a serious and growing problem for the entire nation," she said in a statement released Wednesday.
Wal-Mart and UFCW are longtime adversaries, as the discount giant has for decades successfully headed off any worker efforts to organize at its thousands of stores across the country.
The union released a report entitled "America Pays, Wal-Mart Saves," in which it claimed Wal-Mart's comparatively low wages and healthcare benefits cost Michigan taxpayers about $23.2 million last year, while taxpayers across the United States paid almost $1.4 billion in 2005 to "subsidize Wal-Mart's health care costs."
The report also estimated that taxpayers' bill will rise to $9.1 billion from 2006 to 2010 "if the Wal-Mart Health Care Crisis remains unchecked."
"Since Wal-Mart and other large corporations refuse to act responsibly when it comes to their employees' health insurance, Wake Up Wal-Mart is coordinating a nationwide effort to gain support for additional states to adopt legislation modeled after Maryland's 'Fair Share Health Care' bill," Collins said.
