Olympia: With an imminent deadline, labor unions are pushing Wal-Mart against a Wall, to cough up more on Healthcare for its staff.
Although it appears that the unions are doing this for the cause of the workers, and improve their lot, there appears more to it than what meets the eye. The scene is on the brink of a major tussle between the vehemently anti-union companies and the unions themselves.The scene at Washington is hotting up with the battle lines clearly drawn- the nation’s largest unions doubling up to confront the retail giant.
Wal-Mart officials blame the dwindling membership in the unions as a cause for the upsurge. Jennifer Holder, regional spokeswoman for Wal-Mart, said 'That's what this all boils down to,' They've been unsuccessful at organizing us, so they're waging this multimillion-dollar campaign to slow our growth.'
According to the Union leaders, the main reason for this is to stop the fall in health care benefits to workers and provide a thrust to the pathetic healthcare system. They say the company is very miserly with health-care benefits for its workers. Wal-Mart’s growth in size and stature seems to exert pressure on the competitor companies to follow suit in the reduction of healthcare benefits.
So the key agenda of the union is to get Wal-Mart into sprucing up the health benefits. David Groves, spokesman for the Washington State Labor Council said We don't try to pretend that we're doing this just out of the goodness of our hearts to protect Wal-Mart workers, and this isn't just about protecting taxpayers. It's also about protecting good union jobs in the retail sector that are disappearing because of Wal-Mart's business model.
