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Oct. 26th, 2005 08:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sophiaserpentiaThe New York Times printed an article on an internal Wal-Mart memo on the impact of healthcare costs on their bottom line.
Does the memo advocate pressing Congress to reign in Big Pharma's greed? No, out-of-control medical inflation is accepted as a matter of course. Does the memo advocate opening a national dialogue on the social factors causing Americans to be increasingly unhealthy? No. Why? Because there is an implicit understanding among the people at the upper echelons of the corporate ranks that the status quo is far too profitable to risk shaking it up. If we as a society look deeply and honestly into the things that are making us unhealthy, we might find that ways of doing business have to change. Their collective avoidance of these issues means shoving off more and more of the costs onto the middle and lower classes, while grabbing more and more of the benefits. This is part of the pattern which i call Cannibal: the slow-motion consumption of one group of humans by another.
And now, here's yet another piece of proof that this is not accidental, a battle-plan in a kind of warfare that most of us were unaware is being waged. Wal-Mart's board of directors knows that Wal-Mart is large enough to impact the way healthcare costs are distributed in society, and that their decisions will influence the ways other companies do business (because, you know, they have to stay competitive, or the almighty Profit God will frown upon them.) So if these measures are taken, others will follow suit -- the old familiar oligarchical collectivism at work.
(The logic fueling the capitalist "race to the bottom" would also apply in reverse, if people were actually valued; if everyone did business in a humane way, no one's share of the profits would be hurt. So when government has taken measures to force a humane minimum standard, such as a minimum wage or a 40-hour work week, businesses have always continued to make a profit. This despite stockholders' bellyaching that labor standards would hurt their bottom line; their typically myopic point of view fails to consider that when everyone is doing the same thing, it is not a competitive disadvantage.)
The memo's author, Wal-Mart's Executive Vice President for Benefits, uses employee satisfaction surveys to help determine where costs can be cut. High satisfaction means that Wal-Mart is being too generous. Overall, she treats the needs of Wal-Mart's employees as a burden. I literally get the impression, reading this, that she barely thinks of employees as people. They are numbers, and where those numbers dip they cut into stockholder's profits. She laments that less healthy employees are more likely to stay with the company. By "less healthy employees" she mainly means fat people, who "common sense" says are to blame for their own health issues because we all know that being fat is entirely due to poor choices and not, say, the fact that many people are getting filthy rich selling addictive and unhealthy foods -- although her analysis would impact anyone with a chronic illness or a disability, or a sick child or parent. Sheesh, loyalty to an employer used to be rewarded; now you get a kick in the teeth.
The memo also complains about "well-funded, well-organized critics," as if the labor unions were actually some kind of threat with real political clout. Do the corporate bigwigs feel oppressed by our needs to be treated as human beings? Aww.
Well, enough commentary; read the memo for yourself [pdf]. Some selected excerpts:
Does the memo advocate pressing Congress to reign in Big Pharma's greed? No, out-of-control medical inflation is accepted as a matter of course. Does the memo advocate opening a national dialogue on the social factors causing Americans to be increasingly unhealthy? No. Why? Because there is an implicit understanding among the people at the upper echelons of the corporate ranks that the status quo is far too profitable to risk shaking it up. If we as a society look deeply and honestly into the things that are making us unhealthy, we might find that ways of doing business have to change. Their collective avoidance of these issues means shoving off more and more of the costs onto the middle and lower classes, while grabbing more and more of the benefits. This is part of the pattern which i call Cannibal: the slow-motion consumption of one group of humans by another.
And now, here's yet another piece of proof that this is not accidental, a battle-plan in a kind of warfare that most of us were unaware is being waged. Wal-Mart's board of directors knows that Wal-Mart is large enough to impact the way healthcare costs are distributed in society, and that their decisions will influence the ways other companies do business (because, you know, they have to stay competitive, or the almighty Profit God will frown upon them.) So if these measures are taken, others will follow suit -- the old familiar oligarchical collectivism at work.
(The logic fueling the capitalist "race to the bottom" would also apply in reverse, if people were actually valued; if everyone did business in a humane way, no one's share of the profits would be hurt. So when government has taken measures to force a humane minimum standard, such as a minimum wage or a 40-hour work week, businesses have always continued to make a profit. This despite stockholders' bellyaching that labor standards would hurt their bottom line; their typically myopic point of view fails to consider that when everyone is doing the same thing, it is not a competitive disadvantage.)
The memo's author, Wal-Mart's Executive Vice President for Benefits, uses employee satisfaction surveys to help determine where costs can be cut. High satisfaction means that Wal-Mart is being too generous. Overall, she treats the needs of Wal-Mart's employees as a burden. I literally get the impression, reading this, that she barely thinks of employees as people. They are numbers, and where those numbers dip they cut into stockholder's profits. She laments that less healthy employees are more likely to stay with the company. By "less healthy employees" she mainly means fat people, who "common sense" says are to blame for their own health issues because we all know that being fat is entirely due to poor choices and not, say, the fact that many people are getting filthy rich selling addictive and unhealthy foods -- although her analysis would impact anyone with a chronic illness or a disability, or a sick child or parent. Sheesh, loyalty to an employer used to be rewarded; now you get a kick in the teeth.
The memo also complains about "well-funded, well-organized critics," as if the labor unions were actually some kind of threat with real political clout. Do the corporate bigwigs feel oppressed by our needs to be treated as human beings? Aww.
Well, enough commentary; read the memo for yourself [pdf]. Some selected excerpts:
Growth in benefits costs is unacceptable (15 percent per year) and driven by fundamental and persistent root causes (e.g., aging workforce, increasing average tenure). Unabated, benefits costs could consume an incremental 12 percent of our total profits in 2011, equal to $30 billion to $35 billion in market capitalization.
While Associates are satisfied overall with their benefits, they are opposed to most traditional cost-control levers (e.g., higher deductibles for health insurance) [gee, maybe you can't squeeze blood from a stone earning $17,500 a year]. Satisfaction also varies significantly by benefit and by segment of Associates. Most troubling, the least healthy, least productive Associates are more satisfied with their benefits than other segments and are interested in longer careers with Wal-Mart.
... Given the impact of tenure on wages and benefits, the cost of an Associate with 7 years of tenure is almost 55 percent more than the cost of an Associate with 1 year of tenure, yet there is no difference in his or her productivity. Moreover, because we pay an Associate more in salary and benefits as his or her tenure increases, we are pricing that Associate out of the labor market, increasing the likelihood that he or she will stay with Wal-Mart.
... Wal-Mart should seek to attract a healthier workforce. The first recommendation in this section, moving all Associates to consumer-driven health plans, will help achieve this goal because these plans are more attractive to healthier Associates. The team is also considering additional incentives to support this objective, including:A healthier workforce will lead to lower health insurance costs, lower absenteeism through fewer sick days, and higher productivity. It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier workforce than it will be to change behavior in an existing one. These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart.
- Design all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart gathering); [i'm willing to bet you won't see the executives out there doing this]
- Offer savings via the Discount Card on healthy foods (e.g., fruits and vegetables) [and meanwhile keep opening McDonald's restaurants inside many Wal-Mart stores]
- Offer benefits that appeal to healthy Associates (e.g., an education offering targeted at students).
