This and the trade deficit we are racking up with China are two good reasons I don’t shop at Walmart.

Hey, what’s the beef?  This is just another example of the sort of playful creativity that evolves within laissez-faire capitalism.  Besides, who cares about the next of kin of Wal-Mart employees?  C’mon.

I guess I just don’t see the problem, as long as Wal-mart didn’t deliberately kill their employees to collect the insurance money.

If you die before collecting Social Security, it’s not like your heirs get a refund.

I would like it if more things at Wal-mart were still made in America, but I don’t think that is going to happen.  OTOH, the Chinese get all the pollution that goes along with having massive and somewhat inefficient manufacturing going on.

Personally, I’d rather have 1.5 billion people who believe they, too, can get a job in a factory and buy a DVD player, TV and a car than 1.5 billion poor, angry people who still think Communism is a good idea and the US is the enemy of all that is right.

I still prefer Target, nonetheless.

There’s the feeling of considering employees as property about this - whilst I see nothing harmful from it, it is a perversion of what life insurance was originally meant for. Along these lines you could in theory take out insurance on people/property you’ve no connection to (like gambling), however to have things expected of you as a result of fulfilling someone else’s bet (when there are consequences for not fulfilling), and without having a veto on the matter, would be unfair, and that seems where it’s headed

Perhaps we could take out like insurances on celebrities and heads of state.  Don’t bother with the Kennedy’s- they don’t pay out on suspicious circumstances…

I have heard of a perverse form of gambling called ‘Death Clubs’. Its an office lottery with guarenteed winners.

Every one picks a famous person, or they are drawn from a hat. Each member pays an amount into the kitty each week. When one of the famous people is announced dead, the holder gets the current kitty, picks a new famous person and then every one starts to build the kitty again.

I sorta agree with NeonCat here. What this tells me is that Wal-Mart is getting payout for hiring the elderly, the terminally ill, and any number of other people, deemed likely to die, whom they might suffer a loss for hiring. It’s just a pity there isn’t a lot of accountability to go around for all the people who have been seriously injured on-site and not received their due.

I don’t think that Communism necessarily means being poor and angry and unable to buy a DVD player - Communism is still rampant in China. It’s entirely possible for communism and capitalism to exist in the same vein as religion and science, even though both pairs are antithetical in several aspects. Compartmentalization. Of course money’s important - the question of communism is how you spend it.

Speaking as a licensed insurance agent (and you have no idea how much it pains me to say that about myself), what Walmart did was odd, creative and a stretch, but it was an extension of normal insurance practices. This seems to be to be a extension of what’s called Key Man (or Key Person, if you want to be P.C.) insurance. It’s normally introduced as something for important people in the company. A two-man print shop, for example, would have a policy on both of the owners. That way, if one died, the other could afford to hire a replacement, so the business won’t die with one owner.

Extending the practice to 350,000 people (whose main job, for all we know, might be standing in a doorway and greeting people) seems bizarre, but it’s probably within insurance regulations, if not practices. Think about it. If Walmart spends $5,000 training someone to work at (say) a heavily automated warehouse, should they be allowed to insure that investment?

One more thing to consider—I’d have to expect that Florida has some a pretty tough state insurance board, considering it’s Where New York Goes to Die, and New York is a particularly persnickety state, insurance-wise.

Ob Professional: I’m licensed in NY, so I’m talking out my ass for Florida. YMMV.

Duke York, you’re exactly the guy to answer the question that comes to my mind about this (so please don’t feel bad about being an insurance agent!)

My thought is: If Wal-Mart has 350,000 people, they’re a pretty large statistical universe, in which case the insurance company from which they buy the insurance will on average be making money on those policies - because insurance companies figure that out pretty carefully.  Meaning that, at the aggregate bottom line, Wal-Mart cannot be making money from employees who die. 

As I understand it, many large concerns self-insure small losses (say, less than $1m) for that reason - they only buy catastrophe insurance.  If I’m right that Wal-Mart is certainly big enough for that, (so they couldn’t profit from the policies) what other motive could they have than making money?  Hard to imagine a greeter or stocker fits “key man” status. I’m kinda stumped by this.

(i’m not duke york but hell this is in addition...)

DoF: Meaning that, at the aggregate bottom line, Wal-Mart cannot be making money from employees who die

Good point- they must be expecing something to decrease the odds of survival that the insurance companies don’t know about, they can certainly withstand their individual deaths if uninsured so this probably isn’t about risk of serious loss, they expect to profit

I say individual, because what would happen if a 350000 staff were likely to die in an unusually short space of time - that would be loss but one they somehow expect

Even Wal-Mart admits in the article that the practice is a bit dubious, they were phasing it out before anyone began to get upset about it, they were loosing money on it (but that might have been the intention, because they also said that it was for tax purposes), and that in any case it was all more or less legal when they began the concept.

Personally I think it’s pretty popular to kick the big guy, but Wal-Mart probably more above board than an awful lot of corporations less fat for fleecing and with a lot less to lose if they’re not meticulous about dotting i’s and crossing t’s.  For me, all I see is that Wal-Mart employs an awful lot of poor people - and people bitch about that but I don’t see many other companies out there doing it. Usually to find work with the skill set demanded of Wal-Mart employees you have to move to Asia or south of Texas these days, which makes it probably one of the last real economic barriers against inflation to REALLY magnify the differences between the haves and the have nots.

MisterMook: For me, all I see is that Wal-Mart employs an awful lot of poor people - and people bitch about that but I don’t see many other companies out there doing it.

They do but not out of kindness; as a business that is pressured to make profit they’ve chosen a skill set that has large labour supply, allowing lots of choice and the ability to pay less because people are more desperate for the money. People will work harder and tolerate more for lower pay if need outweighs greed. Businesses cannot afford to act with purely moral intentions like providing work simply out of kindness, because sooner or later it’ll conflict with the interests of shareholders, I can’t blame businesses for what pressures they have to answer to, or sharholders for needing money (greed is where i’d draw the line), it’s just the way the system works.

Without Wallmart some other business will come along anyway to take advantage of that (now cheaper) labour supply, possibly even start-ups amongst the staff to fill that gap. And if the poor are without income and spending slows, prices will drop to help. Economics self-adjusts because it internally pressures itself to return to normality.

This is where a lot of highly-skilled and good-hearted people go astray when looking at Wal-Mart.  They see a lot of people working for low pay.  “I wouldn’t work for that much,” they think, “Wal-Mart is oppressing them somehow.”

True the market adjusts in fine increments, but at some level as a nation we should decide about where the market just isn’t good enough for the kind of society we want, and accept some inefficiency with regulation or large government programs like national health insurance.  (Also noting that our market is already only free to the extent that lobbyists fail to obtain special favors for their constituents)

What Wal-Mart is doing may be entirely legal, I don’t know as I’m not up on the law in that regard. It still bothers me because it’s one more indication that Wal-Mart sees its employees as another expendable resource to be squeezed for all the profit they can make from them.

Wal-Mart is one of the most profitable companies in America with the clout to dictate to manufacturers how they do their business as a result (the smaller boxes video games come in today is the result of a demand from Wal-Mart). If they paid a reasonable wage to their workers and provided a reasonable health care plan and told their workers they were taking out life insurance policies on them then I’d probably have less of a problem with this. But they don’t pay a living wage, they don’t provide reasonable health care — many Wal-Mart workers are on Medicaid shifting the health care burden from Wal-Mart to taxpayers — and they’re not informing their workers.

To me that’s ethically questionable at best and tacky as hell to be certain.

dof- agreed, the market only adjusts as far as it needs to so will always keep some people in some level of need, it’ll never be ideal if free but will have a limit to how bad it can get. Polital intervention alows better and worse possibilities depending how it goes, it removes economic forces and asks you trust the human nature of polititions

Benevolent centralised rule could be ideal but the world needs to be ready, and human nature still had bugs in 1917.

There’s am awful lot of misinformation out there about Wal-Mart. I don’t know anything about this insurance deal, it does seem weird, but I used to be an assistant store manager with Wal-Mart in Maryland and I can say from personal experience that many of the stories you here wrong.

Wal-Mart may have a lot of low income jobs, but in any given community they’re starting pay is higher than most similar business. (ie large retail or fast food)

They give raises both annually and on a merit basis.

They train any employee who wants to be trained, for better jobs within the company. They promote from within. Over 70% of Wal-Mart’s store managers were promoted from the sales floor.

They’re one of the few retail companies that offer profit sharing to all their employees.

My mother has worked for Wal-Mart for over ten years now. She loves they company and wouldn’t consider leaving for any reason. She’s not management, she’s just office staff in a store. But she is paid well (over $15 an hour last time I checked), has a decent health and prescription plan and has received a profit share check of over a thousand bucks every year.

They do but not out of kindness; as a business that is pressured to make profit they’ve chosen a skill set that has large labour supply, allowing lots of choice and the ability to pay less because people are more desperate for the money.

Um, does your employer pay YOU out of kindness? Kindness and benevolence are traits that work out just fine on an individual level, and they’re part of what people band together into nations to promote...I’m not sure I think it’s a particularly useful or desirable trait for a business though.

As for “choosing” a skill set? That’s simply bullshit. They have a business, the job requirements are set by the market. If they were “choosing” somehow they’d not have labor costs at all, because people are fantastically expensive to hire, especially in the United States. And as for the “desperate” bit? Again, I’m not sure that’s a problem for Wal-Mart, and I think I’ve made my position on supporting nationalized health care pretty clear here in other threads. Like I said, benevolence is a function of government.

And as for Wal-Mart being somehow exploitive of their profit margins? That’s simply not borne out by even cursory investigation of the company. Wal-Mart makes an awful lot of money not because they’re making a lot of money on any individual item, or even (despite some real shenanigans in that area) by using their muscle to browbeat suppliers into lowering prices. It’s all about market penetration and having a truly remarkable distribution and inventory control. The other bits add to the value they get from it, but other people can (and do)compete in a regional market for prices with Wal-Mart, pay their employees a comparable wage, etc and they don’t do anywhere near as well because the haven’t gotten throwing a store down in the middle of nowhere down to the science that Wal-Mart has and they can’t manage their inventory as well.

Again, this isn’t to say that Wal-Mart is some sort of pretty do-gooder that is out there hiring people to kiss puppies and help the elderly across the street, but honestly I think an awful lot of governments could follow a worse example than studying the things that Wal-Mart does right and trying to copy them.

For instance, if Nationalized Healthcare were implemented, you could do a lot worse than getting it to people with the same core principles as Wal-Mart manages. Put them in the small towns first, centralize and magnify distribution, predict need based on statistical evidence and react to it, pay attention to regional more than local politics, every store has to be as near as possible to an interstate, etc. People complain about the same things in nationalized health care from reports I’ve heard that they do about Wal-Mart - but Wal-Mart manages to keep financing it’s own expansions, replacing outdated stores, and keeps a more or less modernized storefront going 24 hours a day in something like 500+ locations. Flu shots? Isn’t that something you could hire people to attend to at about the same skill set people are bitching about Wal-Mart hiring? What about normal eye exams? Not rocket science. My sister-in-law is an idiot, and she used to be licensed to clean teeth. Surely other undereducated people, not just the ones married to my brother, could manage? Here’s the thing: Nationalized healthcare’s most extreme benefits will be felt by the core demographic of people that already shop at Wal-Mart. What does Wal-Mart know about serving poor people that others don’t know yet?

Lot of really interesting points about Wal-Mart.  This one is worth exploring a bit more:

As for “choosing” a skill set? That’s simply bullshit. They have a business, the job requirements are set by the market.

Not exactly.  A cook in a traditional restaurant has a very skilled job requiring advanced organizational thinking.  People manufacturing - and I use that word deliberately - a meal at McDonald’s are following a system and exercise a far simpler skill set than the cook at your favorite breakfast restaurant.

Wal-Mart has done something very similar, by systematizing their operation at many levels.  They have evaded the usual pitfalls of ‘clueless college-boy Taylorism’ by their inline promotions - people who think up those systems have either worked on the floor or must pass inspection by those who have. 

So the skillset for a particular job may start out being market-dictated, but a company might reshape it for greater efficiency and gain a market advantage.  This is generally a good thing.

Les, I gotta say, I just can’t figure out how Wal-Mart could be making money on those policies.  What they’re up to, I can’t imagine.  As for employees being a tradable commodity, well, we pretty much all are.  HR departments work hard on making it not seem that way, though, with varying degrees of success.

Mistermook - chill, it’s nothing personal

Um, does your employer pay YOU out of kindness? Kindness and benevolence are traits that work out just fine on an individual level, and they’re part of what people band together into nations to promote...I’m not sure I think it’s a particularly useful or desirable trait for a business though

As I was saying, businesses aren’t usually benevolent because they can’t afford to be because shareholders pressure for profit, so I’ve identified a problem that due to the system cannot be fixed (it’s an automatic product). Because it cannot be done to any significant extent I’m not suggesting they try.

The place I work for pays everyone who isn’t a manager NMW for whatever age they are, because they can, they resent doing it and don’t pay for morning briefing or store closing, each being 15 mins either side of contract hours. Weekends are at normal rate and bank holdays at 1.5x because the law forces them to.

As for “choosing” a skill set? That’s simply bullshit. They have a business, the job requirements are set by the market. If they were “choosing” somehow they’d not have labor costs at all, because people are fantastically expensive to hire, especially in the United States

They chose what they wanted to set up business in or what to diversify into, that involves choosing the type of worker you’re after. Markets do change but for some jobs walmart has a pretty guaranteed labour supply because of broad appeal, as you said about healthcare, not everything needs a professional qualification, and when training is needed it could be done within. For the less skilled positions they can choose from many applicants in unemployed areas.

And as for the “desperate” bit? Again, I’m not sure that’s a problem for Wal-Mart

I was referring to the workers - generally speaking people who are financially struggling will tolerate lower pay and harsher conditions. If there is performance pay you can get them to work harder by cutting the rate of comission so they need to do more to make ends-meat. This you can only do when people live in need.

And as for Wal-Mart being somehow exploitive of their profit margins? That’s simply not borne out by even cursory investigation of the company

Still driven by shareholder pressure though

but other people can (and do)compete in a regional market for prices with Wal-Mart, pay their employees a comparable wage, etc

Retail around here is nearly all minimum wage, £5.35/hour, to put it into perspective cheap houses cost approx £100K here, rent will cost £100/week. A McDonalds meal will cost about £2, gas costs about £4/gallon.
you can see why here retail doesn’t appear relitively high cost of labour, and seems disproportionately unfair when you have managers at £15/hour, plumbers and doctors at £30/hour but pHD chemists at only around £7.5/hour. The pay per time trained seems a joke, and it mainly depends on the public perception of the work, as does the respect.

For instance, if Nationalized Healthcare were implemented, you could do a lot worse than getting it to people with the same core principles as Wal-Mart manages

I agree that government should give free healthcare as it shouldn’t have to depend on pay. Most Britons prefer having an NHS despite higher taxes, but it depends on where the pressure comes from in the US, political vs economic and the public willingness there to pay higher taxes for an NHS.

I don’t see a problem with an employer having a limited life insurance policy when it comes to their workers. It should however be a broad base policy that provides them with the means to replace the lost worker and not one that follows them outside of them working for the company.

I agree that government should give free healthcare as it shouldn’t have to depend on pay.

I don’t agree with this at all. I will say though that all employers should have health care for those they employ.

off topic
I would also say that anyone making under $15 a hour get $1 a hour put into an education fund that can be used for college or trade school. those funds should also be transferable to children or grandchildren.

I will say though that all employers should have health care for those they employ.

Not everyone works (unemployed and dependants) and they will still need some level of healthcare, at least for the life-threatening, and if you make it the employer’s responsibility they’re going to want to call for changes in the law so it only covers injuries in working hours, and so that it will only be for the worker. The need for health applies to all demographics, and it is government’s responsibility to look after their citizens. Free (at the point of use) services to everyone in a country are why we have taxation, things like education, defense, police, etc, otherwise there’d be no point in having a government.

Free (at the point of use) services to everyone in a country are why we have taxation…

Keep cheering that socialism that has done such wonders for Europe Bahamat and allow the rest of us to look at the actual results of how it has helped your fellow man.

Consi- Small deviation from the economic far-right doesn’t make someone a socialist, indeed I don’t think all-out socialism would work so long as human nature has it’s flaws, I want a mixture, with essential services provided by the state but luxuries and commercial interests can stay private - I want companies to have the freedom to do as they wish so long as they keep within certain responsible guidelines. And I do ask, what good are taxes if they don’t pay for services? What would happen to dependants who have no way of making the money to pay for services? Their inability to pay might not be due to irresponsibility on their part; their pension company could’ve gone bust, their savings might’ve lost value to unexpected inflation and they might not even be able to save in the first place if minimum wage is removed and banks become a law upon themselves, they could’ve been victim to burglary, they might’ve had no choice but to put their parents in a care home, which can be costly. You could let these people die, but imagine being in such a position yourself through no fault of your own.

I want almost no taxes. The only things taxes should pay for is what can’t be gotten in a free market. That includes water, power, trash service and the like. Those are things that are only supplied by one source in each city.

Bahamat touches on an important topic.  There is no one best way to run things.  Pure Socialism, Communism, Capitalism, or any other *ism will not work.  Because the government needs to be able to adapt and apply the best measures where needed.

Consi, saying a national health care system in America is a bad idea because Socialism has failed in a few countries in Europe is one of the most nonsensical statements you have ever typed here.