LEE SCOTT AND ANDREW STERN TOGETHER…
[Update -- 1208 -- Yep. I'll give this one two big yawns. Reactions to the actual press conference are still being mulled over but I think that the question has to be now: how does the rank-and-file feel about this?]
Look for either a major announcement or one of the most pretentious pieces of fluff ever to come out of Washington today at 11 a.m., EST. That is when Wal-Mart CEO Lee Scott and SEIU President Andrew Stern have scheduled a joint-press conference on…
Wait for it.
Health care.
No. Really.
According to the New York Times the key element of the press conference will be a call for universal health care by 2012.
But the Times make you wade through five paragraphs of build-up before you get to that let down.
They have established one of the fiercest rivalries in the American economy, attacking one another’s organizations through dueling blogs, newspaper advertisements and news conferences.
But this morning, in an extraordinary meeting in Washington, the chiefs of Wal-Mart Stores and the Service Employees International Union will stand together and agree on a series of goals for achieving universal health coverage, according to people briefed on the matter.
The two men might even shake hands.
The meeting between H. Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart, and Andrew L. Stern, president of the S.E.I.U., which caps months of secret conversations, could be the beginning, however tentative, of a détente between the nation’s largest employer and its labor critics.
At least on one issue. But the issue — providing affordable health insurance — is arguably the biggest facing both Mr. Stern and Mr. Scott. Wal-Mart, which insures fewer than half its workers, has identified health care as potentially the biggest vulnerability to its image and business, and the S.E.I.U., one of the country’s biggest unions, has called it the No. 1 priority for its members.
So, here’s what I’m hearing: (and I’ll be the first to admit I jumped the gun if something else comes out at the press-conference)
Neither of us have a clue as to how to get Wal-Mart employees affordable and worth-while health care so we’re going to dump the problem on the tax payers and the federal government’s lap and put off any real work for, oh, five years or so.
Yawn.
But I could be wrong.
And you can watch it with me here in case you want to taunt me and call me silly names when I’m wrong.
Further details are sketchy, but the Service Employees International Union has said that the participants will include:
Lee Scott, President and CEO of Wal-Mart Stores Inc.;
Andrew Stern, President of the Service Employees International Union;
John Podesta, President of the Center for American Progress and former Chief of Staff to President Clinton;
Howard Baker, founder of the Howard H. Baker, Jr. Center for Public Policy at the University of Tennessee and former Senate Majority Leader and Chief of Staff to President Ronald Reagan;
Carl Camden, President and CEO of Kelly Services Inc.;
Larry Cohen, President of the Communications Workers of America;
James Cicconi, Senior Executive Vice President-External & Legislative Affairs, AT&T;
Colin Evans, Director Policy and Standards Digital Health Group, Intel; and,
Charles Kolb, President of the Committee for Economic Development.
[...] [Special Announcement: Major Wal-Mart and SEIU press conference today at 11 a.m.] [...]
[...] Jeff Hess has the whole story at Writing on the Wal. [...]
[...] Here’s Lee Scott at the you-never-thought-you’d-see-the-day press conference Jeff blogged about this morning: “Wal-Mart is committed to high quality, affordable and accessible health care. But our current system hurts America’s competitiveness and leaves too many people uninsured,†said Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. President and CEO Lee Scott. “Government alone won’t and can’t solve this crisis. We have to work together – business, labor, government and our communities. We also need to empower people to take more responsibility and more control over their own health care. By following this campaign’s common sense principles, we believe America can have high quality, affordable and accessible health care by 2012. We can slow the growth of health care costs in this country and guarantee the uninsured access to good health coverage.†[...]
[...] If only that were true. Like their almost certainly lame efforts to dump their healthcare problem on the taxpayers of the United States, or their failure to account for the environmental costs of their cheap salmon, Wal-Mart regularly dumps the effects of its policies on others rather than try to address the entirety of the problems those policies create. Wal-Mart Watch offers another good example of this phenomenon today up on their blog: While decentralizing commercial business districts, Wal-Mart puts a heavy emphasis on large parking lots and the placement of the stores takes away transportation options. Wal-Mart supercenters are often located in places where it is extremely difficult to walk to. [...]
After 30 yrs working for a mfg co I retired and was fortunate to receive 50% coverage of medical costs.
As yet I don’t know just you are trying to have legislated but this I know: I am in a low income category and if I pay too much in taxes on my insurance benefit, why should I keep it? Instead I could let it go and get free benefits like other low income earners and avoid such a tax.