After laying off about 15% of the community, Caterpillar Inc. decided to to see how they could turn the screws by cutting out small businesses.
It's bad enough that by laying off regular employees, union and non-union alike, the support businesses got it too. One thing I didn't think they would do is purposely cut out small pharmacies with their healthcare negotiations.
I read a letter in The Pekin Daily Times from a Havana Illinois pharmacy, but of course that story will never make it past the letters to the editor column.
While Caterpillar is experiencing a profit, its employees are wondering if they are going to have a christmas. I guess sometimes it makes people feel better when they have enough control to make others miserable. The layoff never has been about profit and loss. It's mostly been about strikes of the past, control over people, the large company flexing it's muscle to show what it can do to devastate a community, and breaking a union.
They are closing their Mossville Ill. plant and their plant in Mapleton Illinois. As far as I'm concerned they have done nothing for the Peoria area for years but reduce the quality of life for its employees and slapping the country in the face by moving production overseas. I have also noticed that many of the company employees that have lost their jobs are between 40 and 60 years of age. It's probably just a coincidence.
Getting back to the subject, the owners of Wolters Drug Store Inc. in Havana, Illinois were indirectly notified through customers that after Jan. 1, the only fully reimbursed providers would be Walgreens and Walmart. It's not that they've cut the pharmacy out altogether, but because they aren't a Walgreens or a Walmart, the cost of doing business with this pharmacy will be substancially higher, according to the letter, and will cut into the business of not only this pharmacy, but others in the area as well. It's just another case of a corporation stomping on small business owners to drive them out, and put these "peons" in their place.