Targeting Wal-Mart.

Byline: The Register-Guard

It would be hard to fill a phone booth with people who wake up in the morning feeling sorry for Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart long ago eclipsed being the 900-pound gorilla of big-box retailing. Few people would be surprised if Wal-Mart didn't sell 900-pound gorillas somewhere in its SuperCenters, always at the lowest price.

So when the AFL-CIO says Wal-Mart isn't paying its fair share of health insurance costs for its 11,035 Oregon employees, it's natural for people to be concerned for those workers. The AFL-CIO hopes to mobilize that concern in support of a ballot measure that would require Oregon employers with more than 4,500 workers to spend at least 9 percent of payroll on employee health insurance.

Wal-Mart won't be mentioned by name in the initiative, but it may as well be called the Make Wal-Mart Pay (Attention to Unions) Act. Even though the ballot measure's language will apply to Oregon's 12 largest employers, Wal-Mart will most likely be the only employer that isn't already spending the specified amount on employee health insur- ance.

The union-backed targeting of Wal-Mart began with a law passed in Maryland last month only after the Legislature overrode Gov. Robert Ehrlich's veto. Labor unions have said they will introduce similar initiatives in at least 30 states this year, and measures are already under consideration in California and Washington.

Wal-Mart is an easy target (no pun intended - Target stores are covered by the ballot measure but already spend more than the required amount on employee health insurance). Mounting frustration over the nation's dysfunctional health care system and the skyrocketing costs of caring for those who lack health insurance give this issue traction with voters.

But before Oregonians sign on to organized labor's orchestrated effort to stick it to the nation's largest anti-union employer, they should dig beneath the surface and ask some tough questions.

How many Wal-Mart employees will benefit if the ballot measure passes? If, as Wal-Mart executives claim, the company currently spends between 7 percent and 8 percent of payroll on health care, how significant a difference will the additional 1 percent make?

"Eight or 9 percent of payroll does not buy you much insurance," says Gary Claxton, vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation in Washington, which studies health care issues. The uninsured, who generally have lower incomes, "really need more help."

If the measure simply requires Wal-Mart to spend more, there's no incentive for the corporation to provide the best or most economical coverage for its workers. Critics of the Maryland law argued that nothing in the legislation's ambiguous language required employers to cover their uninsured workers. Wal-Mart could simply spend more on health benefits for its already-insured workers and comply with the law.

Wal-Mart isn't the only profitable company that doesn't provide health insurance for all of its workers. Even if legislation forces Wal-Mart to cover more of its employees, that doesn't address the larger problem.

Most uninsured workers are employed by smaller companies that don't provide any health benefits. Meanwhile, the proportion of small firms offering health insurance continues to decline, dropping from 68 percent in 2000 to 59 percent last year.

It's unfair to whip Wal-Mart for the sins of the collapsing U.S. health care system, but that's the price to be paid for lack of meaningful reform in Washington. If Wal-Mart were to use its renowned bargaining clout to convince Congress to act on a national health insurance plan, its current problem would be solved.