Make Wal-Mart Care About Health Care Demonstration
by Caroline Vernon
Earlier today, many local organizations in unison with UFCW’s Wake Up Wal-Mart Campaign and Democracy For America,
organized and demonstrated against the Davenport Wal-Mart on Elmore St,
in an effort to raise public awareness about the fact that large
corporations like Wal-Mart are contributing to America’s health care
crisis. We are calling on all citizens to join our campaign to Make Wal-Mart Care About Health Care.
At last
count, 51 people joined together to protest this unfair treatment by
the world’s largest corporation. United, with one voice, we said
Wal-Mart should pay it’s fair share of health care instead of shifting
the burden to the American taxpayer. Supporters of this effort will
also be writing and lobbying our Iowa/Illinois Governors and other
statewide political leaders to adopt the Fair Share For Health Care Bill,
a proposed legislation designed to address the problem of large
employers failing to provide affordable healthcare options, and to
ensure that state taxpayers do not help subsidize the health care of
large and profitable corporations. In Iowa, Senator Joe Bolkom has
proposed a similar bill that would require the state to annually report
on which companies’ employees seek public assistance, so the state
could pressure the companies to increase health benefits.
Wal-Mart
has failed to provide healthcare for more that 52% of its 1.3 million
workers. In at least 12 states Wal-Mart has more workers who rely on
public health care than any other employer. According to a survey by
the Iowa Department of Human Services, Wal-Mart tops the list of
employers who pay their staff so little that they can’t afford to pay
for health insurance, but also qualify for Medicaid (to be eligible, a
family of four must have an annual income of under $22,000). As of
October 2004, as the second largest employer in Iowa, Wal-Mart has 845
employees in Iowa receiving Medicaid. By contrast, the largest
employer, Hy-Vee, has 361 employees on Medicaid. I find it to be
completely disingenuous that a corporation that earned $10 billion
dollars in profits last year, is unable to provide affordable
healthcare benefits to its workers, most of whom earn so little that
they qualify for the State Medicaid program.
Prior to
our demonstration I issued a full media advisory about the upcoming
event, yet only KWQC Channel 6 showed up to cover it. I’m left to
wonder if our local media even believes that this is a newsworthy
issue. Fortunately, Bayside Multimedia International, Inc., a brand new
local production company was there to film the event. The policy of
Bayside Multimedia is to promote and defend the widest possible
ambiance of “free speech” expression, consistent with US Constitutional
principles developed under the first amendment. Thank you Bayside
Multimedia for your contribution to this cause!
I would
also like to thank Cathy Bolkom and Karl Rhomberg for advertising our
event on AM 1270 – Progressive Radio’s new Saturday morning show from 9
to 9:30, “Conversations with Cathy & Karl”. Thanks a lot and
congratulations on the debut of your new show. Great job!
Local
groups involved in the campaign and demonstration include Democracy for
the Quad Cities, QC Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, QC National
Organization of Woman, and Progressive Action for the Common Good –
Corporate Reform, Health Care, and Media forums. I
would like to send out a special thank you to Dick Fallow with QC
Federation of Labor for all of his creative contributions to this
campaign. It was Dick’s idea to create a gimmick in order to attract
attention as well as stay uniform in our effort to speak with one voice
on this issue. Every participant was given a yellow frowny-face with a
thermometer sticking out of its mouth, meant to reflect that grassroots
pressure will continue to rise on Wal-Mart, until they choose to be
socially responsible to the citizens and the communities in which they
operate.
Other signs read, “Honk if you are for Healthcare” and “Rolling back the Benefits” as
well as our campaign slogan, “Wake-Up Wal-Mart – Make Wal-Mart Care
About Healthcare”. The entire event lasted about 2 hours –
we received a lot of positive feedback from the many passers-by.
If
health care is an issue that you are passionate about, and if you would
like to join us in our effort to hold Wal-Mart accountable, please go
to:
wakeupwalmart.com – Sign up to become a citizen sponsor.
Local groups involved in this effort as well as other important issue forums can be contacted through:
qcprogressiveaction.org
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