So Much for Walmart’s highly touted healthcare coverage

                The big-box retailer has used its pay-to-play healthcare coverage plans for full and part-time employees to counter widespread criticism of its low-wage jobs and negative impact on local communities.  But in late October Walmart abruptly cut back on coverage for future part-timers and dramatically jacked up premiums for many of its full-time workers.

                Beyond the impact on current and future Walmart employees, the company’s action has far-reaching implications for millions of American workers, as other companies follow the giant retailers lead.  With more than 1.4 million employees, Walmart is the nation’s largest private employer.

                “Walmart’s plan to roll back health care coverage for part-time workers and raise premiums for full-time employees should set off alarm bells for American workers,” said the UFCW President Joseph Hansen.  “This lowering of working standards will have repercussions throughout the retail industry particularly for part-time workers.”

                “This is drastic,” Walmart worker Bonnie Shoaf told the Associated Press.  “There goes my food money.  I don’t have any choice, but I will have to pay for it.  I am 60 years old and I can’t start over.”  Shoaf works as a department manager in Blue Ridge, Ga., and gets paid $16.51 per hour; her premiums will jump 92 percent pay period, to $127, up from the current $66.

UCS News~December 2011