Wal-Mart bashers were out in full force Thursday in the wake of a report that, just months before the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act goes into full effect, the retailer is hiring lots of temps and very few full-time or even true part-time employees.
The furor came after the news service Reuters reported that many Wal-Mart stores around the U.S. are hiring only temporary workers. Temps are generally hired for designated short periods of time — in the case of Wal-Mart, many are on 180-day contracts, Reuters reported. Temps rarely accrue any benefits whatsoever.
The Bentonville, Ark., company told Reuters that the hiring pattern identified had to do with making sure its stores had enough employees available at all times to cover all shifts. A company official told Reuters the hiring strategy had nothing to do with the PPACA.
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Few were buying it.
Internet chatter has been buzzing with criticism of Wal-Mart's employee relations policies since the story broke, most of it focusing on how the shift to more temps would reduce Wal-Mart's exposure to the added health care costs implicit in the PPACA.
Wal-Mart has already been characterized by those in the labor movement as an especially miserly employer when it comes to offering benefits to its employees. Now, its critics believe the approach of the PPACA has completely unmasked Wal-Mart as a benefits chiseler.
"All this to avoid paying both a fair wage and health insurance. … Buy cheap goods made in China and sell it here while passing off worker benefits to local governments," one reader commented on the Huffington Post website's posting of the story.
Said another: "Why does this surprise anyone? With Obamacare coming on board companies won't hire full-time help and will rely heavily on temp agencies who will claim that the temps are private contractors and they, the temp agency, are just a go-between. Any thing to beat Obamacare."
Just last week, at Wal-Mart's annual meeting of shareholders, President and CEO Mike Duke boasted that Wal-Mart is setting the example for how Corporate America should treat its employees.
"No company provides more opportunity to more people to go from where they are to where they want to be than Walmart," said Duke. "Associates join Walmart for so many different reasons. When it comes to our careers, what we all have in common is that we started somewhere. What matters most is that we get the chance to go as far as hard work and talent will take us."
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Dan Cook
Dan Cook is a journalist and communications consultant based in Portland, OR. During his journalism career he has been a reporter and editor for a variety of media companies, including American Lawyer Media, BusinessWeek, Newhouse Newspapers, Knight-Ridder, Time Inc., and Reuters. He specializes in health care and insurance related coverage for BenefitsPRO.
