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Points of View: Fair Share Part of National Union Push |
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Written On: March 2006 |
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Editor's Note: Washington Business Magazine asked Rep. Steve Conway, D-Tacoma, to write the opposing view on the so-called "Wal-Mart" bill, but he missed our copy deadline. We delayed sending the magazine to the printer until the very last second. What follows was compiled by AWB staff in an attempt to demonstrate the opposing point of view.
Nationally, the AFL-CIO is pushing legislation requiring businesses to dedicate differing percentages of payroll for health care. The legislation surfaced in 33 states and is showing up in large cities and counties.
Since the new Maryland law and an ordinance in Suffolk County, New York, came into being, they are being challenged in federal courts by national retailer organizations who claim they violate the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974. ERISA sets minimum standards for most voluntarily established pension and health plans to insure consistency in benefits for multi-state employers.
According to the AFL-CIO Web site: "In general, Fair Share Health Care legislation requires large, profitable corporations to spend a certain percentage of their payroll to provide health care benefits for their employees or pay into a state health care fund. Fair Share will reduce the price taxpayers pay to cover profitable employers' employee expenses, ease the financial strain states face in growing Medicaid costs, and help level the playing field between companies that provide good jobs and benefits and those that don't."
Triggering Washington's legislation were confidential documents leaked to the media. The reports came from sensitive confidential employee data collected by the state from company files and then sent to key legislators. The cover letter on the documents specifically warned that unauthorized release could violate state and federal law and carry with it fines of up to $5,000.
While promising to track down the unauthorized release of the information and punish the offenders, at press time neither the governor's office nor the attorney general have gone public with the results of their investigations or stated what they would do to those violating the law.
According to The Seattle Times, the leaked documents list 50 companies whose employees received Basic Health Plan or Medicaid Benefits in 2004.
The newspaper said Wal-Mart came out on top of both lists, by wide margins. One report shows that, throughout 2004, an average 3,180 Wal-Mart employees were receiving state-funded medical assistance, including Medicaid, for themselves or for a dependent. The other report shows that 456 Wal-Mart employees were on the state's Basic Health Plan that year. Some employees may be counted on both of the lists.
In announcing the Washington legislation, Rep. Steve Conway, D-Lakewood, chair of the House Labor and Commerce Committee and an official in the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Local 81, and Rep. Eileen Cody, D-Seattle, chair of the Health Care Committee and a founding member and former treasurer of District 1199 Northwest Hospital and Health Workers Union, SEIU, spoke to The Seattle Times.
"I think taxpayers should be outraged," Conway said. "They [taxpayers] are subsidizing one of the wealthiest corporations [Wal-Mart] in the world."
"It shows Wal-Mart isn't even taking care of its full-time employees," Cody told the Times. On the AFL-CIO Web site, she added: "Most large employers do provide health care. The idea here is to hold the ones who don't accountable so they are not undermining the structure of those who do." Cody sponsored the Fair Share bill in Washington.
We are a targeted state. Legislation, which died in the House, would have required companies with 5,000 or more employees to dedicate 9 percent of payroll to health care. Not included in the 9 percent are costs for wellness programs.
Both Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire and House Speaker Frank Chopp, D-Seattle, spoke before the unions in Olympia. Chopp, who killed the bill, stated it was bad legislation and did little to improve access to health care. Meanwhile the governor told the rank and file that she will work to perfect the legislation for 2007.
In Maryland, lawmakers overrode a gubernatorial veto and now employers with more than 10,000 workers must assign 8 percent of payroll to health care, and in San Francisco there is a city ordinance under consideration which would require businesses with 20 workers or more, including part-time workers who work more than 80 hours a month, to provide a health insurance plan that would cost $325 per month for each worker. And, in Oregon, Tom Chamberlain, president of the state’s AFL-CIO, filed an initiative called Oregon Fair Share.
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