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Sacramento Bee, October 27, 2004
Wal-Mart responded Tuesday to a critical television ad with a $500,000
contribution to fight a California ballot measure that would require
employers to provide health insurance to workers.
The giant retailer's entry into the Proposition 72 campaign came four
days after supporters began running an ad alleging taxpayers in the
state spent $32 million last year providing health care to Wal-Mart
workers.
"We felt compelled to get involved because the proponents are
running a multimillion-dollar television ad campaign that specifically
targets Wal-Mart, and the claims they make are lies," said company
spokeswoman Cynthia Lin.
Lin called the ad, airing statewide as Tuesday's election approaches,
an attempt by unions to make nonunion Wal-Mart a "scapegoat."
Meanwhile, supporters of Proposition 72 held a telephone news conference
during which two former Wal-Mart employees charged they were encouraged
by the company to apply for public assistance.
The referendum would uphold a law passed last year, calling for companies
with 50 to 199 full-time workers to provide them with health insurance
by 2007 or pay a fee to a state purchasing pool. Companies with 200
or more full-time workers would have to insure them and their dependents
by 2006.
A coalition of unions, medical and consumer groups is leading the
pro-Proposition 72 campaign. Until the ad, Wal-Mart had not been among
the big retailers and restaurant chains funding the opposition.
The ad maintains that although Wal-Mart is "one of the world's
most profitable corporations," taxpayers paid "over $32
million for the health care of Wal-Mart employees who went to public
clinics because the company won't provide affordable health insurance."
But Lin said nearly two-thirds of Wal-Mart's 60,000 "eligible,
full-time and hourly employees" in California are enrolled in
the company's health care plan.
In the ad, Proposition 72 supporters relied on a University of California,
Berkeley, Labor Center analysis showing that taxpayers paid $86 million
in public assistance programs for Wal-Mart employees, with $32 million
of that directed to public health care.
Lin dismissed the study as "partisan," charging the center
has strong ties to organized labor and did not contact the company
for statistics.
She also denied allegations by supporters of Proposition 72 that Wal-Mart
encourages its employees to apply for public assistance.
But during a telephone conference call, former employee Leilani Luia
said that was not her experience. Luia said she worked at a Wal-Mart
store in Stockton until February.
"(During orientation), they would give you the (phone) number
for Healthy Families," she said, referring to the state program
for uninsured children.
Another former Wal-Mart employee, Laura Redfern, said she was covered
by Medi-Cal, the state's insurance program for the poor, while working
at a Sam's Club in Roseville six years ago.
"I was in the hospital for 31/ 2 weeks with pneumonia."
said Redfern, who lives in North Highlands. "Medi-Cal paid for
that, over $7,000."
Redfern now works at an Albertsons supermarket in Sacramento, where
she receives full benefits.
Supporters of Proposition 72 fear the expansion of nonunion Wal-Mart
into California's grocery market threatens unionized supermarket workers.
"Generally speaking, most large supermarkets provide a full level
of benefits," Richard Holober, executive director of the Consumer
Federation of California, said during Tuesday's pro-Proposition 72
news conference.
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