A giant retailer says competitors should join with it to improve the level of health insurance benefits for part-time employees.
Unions have organized a large, well-publicized campaign against Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Bentonville, Ark., to highlight weaknesses in U.S. retail workers’ health benefits.
Susan Chamber, executive vice president of the people division at Wal-Mart, talked today at a health care conference in Washington about new and previously announced steps that Wal-Mart will be taking to improve its benefits package for part-time employees and other employees.
“Keep in mind that covering part-time employees is not the norm,” Chambers said, according to a summary of her speech distributed by Wal-Mart. “We hope that others in the retail community will work with us to do the same.”
Chambers said Wal-Mart will be:
- Cutting co-payments on generic medications for conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol and infections to $3, from $10.