It’s a
little late for me, since Wal-Mart laid me off over two years ago, but it will
be great for the rest of the gay and lesbian associates who are still clinging
to their job. Now, those associates
can put their husbands, wives, domestic partners on the health plan.
What
happened? Did a great liberal wave sweep through the corporate home offices in
Bentonville, Arkansas?
Nah—it
happened as Mr. Fernández said it would. It got too
complicated, for one thing, to figure out what state allowed for domestic
partners, what state allowed for marriage equality, when one state would
institute marriage equality. Oh, and what to do about a married gay guy living
across the river in Minnesota but working in a store in Wisconsin?
That was
one thing. The other thing? Talent—and how to attract it. OK, retail is not
like academia, which arguably has a higher percent of gays and lesbians than
retail. But you’d be surprised—I was—by the number of LGBT folk in high
positions in Wal-Mart. And how do you attract a key person away from Costco
when Sam’s won’t put her or his partner on the health plan?
That—if
memory serves—was also the gist of a letter sent to the Wisconsin legislature
by the University
of Wisconsin Board of Regents. Yes, the UW’s History Department has
traditionally been very strong. But several high-powered historians had turned
down the UW to go teach at Harvard, since Massachusetts was the first state to
allow gay marriage, and remains in the vanguard.
Or what do
you do when you’re transferring an employee from Massachusetts to Mississippi?
His compensation package is going to change, if he can no longer put his
husband on the health plan.
Lastly, and
Wal-Mart admits it—they held out until the very end. Of the 30 top retailers,
only two (Publix and a chain I’ve never heard of) are not offering benefits to
same-sex couples.
I wish
there were any pleasure in this for me, since I battled for several years to
put Raf on the health plan. Instead, he paid several thousand dollars more to
be covered under Cobra, when his old job folded. And he is now paying several
thousand more from his old job to cover me, since my job folded, and
Raf’s current employer—like Wal-Mart—doesn’t allow him to put me on the health
plan.
But it’s
hardly the money issue that makes me so sour on hearing this news.
I defended
the company when I worked for it, for nearly 10 years. Does it pay its workers
badly? Yes—and with the exception of Costco—so do all the other retailers. Does
it have a disproportionate number of part-time workers? Again, no more so than
the rest. Does it fight tooth and nail against unions? Absolutely.
We would
have, in fact, seminars on what legally we could say to employees on the topic
of unions. No, we couldn’t threaten to fire either individuals or close the
store if an employee advocated for unions, or if the store joined one. But we
could explain the company policy, which went something like, “Wal-Mart has the
open door policy, which is a way to assure that management and workers
communicate and come to an agreement.”
Well, I
used that policy to press Wal-Mart to put Raf on the health plan. And, be fair,
I was listened to, treated respectfully, and told “no.” Be more fair—the policy
only promises that you’ll be heard, not that you’ll get what you want.
The problem
I have is the strong-armed tactics. Ten current and former employees were
arrested in front of the Washington DC offices of Wal-Mart, recently. And even
worse, some 60 or 70 associates have been fired or disciplined for traveling to
Bentonville during the annual meeting to protest conditions in the stores.
And Sam Walton would be reeling
in his grave at the thought of employees risking their jobs to bus into
Arkansas to raise grievances, while the top management was having what is
essentially a huge party. Why? Because the Walton family owns about 60% of the
stock. So yeah, they have to have an annual meeting—big deal.
Oh, and
that 60% of the stock? That’s equivalent to the amount of money owned by the
bottom 40% of the American people.
So would
Sam Walton be at the party, or would he be outside, listening.
No question
in my mind….
