"Wal-Mart" Bills proposed in Albany

[egadsbrain]

NYT-3/8/06

The national effort to force Wal-Mart and other employers to provide better health care coverage came to Albany on Tuesday, with legislators of both parties promoting bills that would require many businesses to provide insurance for some 450,000 workers who now lack it.

<snip>

While the bills face political and legal challenges, this election year could provide a rare opening in Albany because Republican lawmakers are trying to maintain their slender majority in the State Senate.


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/08/nyregion/08insure.html

[sabbat hunter]

1. right on

wonder how long after it passes it will take walmart to try and challenge it in court rather than give the workers health benefits. or just fire all the full timers and replace them with part timers (the law would only cover those who are full timers under NYS labor laws, 35 hours per week)

[timbnyc44]

2. Clinton Quiet About Past Wal-Mart Ties

I'm kind of amazed it's getting traction at the state level - that's pretty impressive and makes me proud to be a New Yorker! but I wish our junior Senator would get on board, and would own up to her own responsbility for this situation!




NEW YORK - With retail giant Wal-Mart under fire to improve its labor and health care policies, one Democrat with deep ties to the company — Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton — has started feeling her share of the political heat.

Clinton served on Wal-Mart's board of directors for six years when her husband was governor of Arkansas. And the Rose Law Firm, where she was a partner, handled many of the Arkansas-based company's legal affairs.

Clinton had kind words for Wal-Mart as recently as 2004, when she told an audience at the convention of the National Retail Federation that her time on the board "was a great experience in every respect."

[ithacan]

3. excellent!!

walmart got into Ithaca through secret and backhanded dealings of the former mayor and his cronies, after a major popular movement had prevented Walmart from coming here earlier.

And of course we are ending up subsiziding Walmart directly, through the infrastructure required to build the place (on a wetlands and floodplain); but also indirectly by having to pay social services for Walmart employees.

This would be absolutely great, a bit of "taxpayer relief" if there ever was any!