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...State grocery workers are on strike for the first time in 25 years, over a plan by Kroger, Safeway and other chains to shift a bigger chunk of the cost of health care to their unionized labor force of some 70,000. Under competitive siege from nonunion superstores like Wal-Mart, whose health packages for hourly workers are stingier, the grocery chains complain that they are paying 50% more on health coverage than they were four years ago. In full-page ads in California newspapers, they proclaim, "We simply cannot pass these costs along to our customers...
Companies such as Wal-Mart have introduced variable pricing schemes. Its "associates" can choose lower payroll deductions and opt for deductibles as high as $1,000 a year. Other firms, such as General Electric, have launched variable premiums for family coverage, so that a worker pays depending on the size of his or her family. "There used to be two payment levels--single and family," says Gary Sheffer, a GE spokesman. "Starting in 2004, we will go to single, two people and then three or more. And your premiums will go up as you go up that hierarchy...
...year, and companies intend to ask workers to pay more next year, according to the latest survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation. The California supermarkets fear that if they don't shift more costs to employees, they will lose the ability to compete against operations like Wal-Mart, whose overall costs for goods and labor are lower. "In order for us to stay competitive, we need labor contracts that are good for both our employees and our companies," the grocers explained in newspaper...
...album “All I Want for Christmas is a Real Good Tan” and thus joins the ranks of country artists from Dolly Parton to the Judd’s to Randy Travis and Vince Gill, all of whom have twangy holiday albums on shelves in Wal-Marts nationwide...
...define "turning around" as "more jobs paying above minimum wage", or as "more middle-class wage-earners employed". We are approaching a crisis in the loss of manufacturing and skilled-labor jobs that will create a two-class economy: the wealthy and the fast-food and Wal-Mart workers. An economy like that is closer to the Third World than the U.S. of the 40s through the 70s. Mark Shanks Portland...