Victory in Maryland on Wal-Mart Bill

It's official - the Maryland legislature has passed the Fair Share Health Care Act, aka "The Wal-Mart Bill."  This was actually an over-ride vote.  The bill passed last year late in the session, and Republican Gov. Bob Ehrlich vetoed it after the close of session.  The legislature had to wait until the new 2006 session (official opening was yesterday) to vote on over-rides.

I feel personally involved in this as an active DFA member. We pushed members to contact their state Senators and Delegates and got good responses.  DFA had a healthy contingent that joined SEIU and other volunteers yesterday to personally lobby our legislators at the state capitol.  It was touch and go but we won.

Now the ball starts rolling for the other 29 states that are considering other legislation.  I know the union organizers will compare notes on what worked in Maryland and what didn't work.

The bill, in a nutshell, requires private companies with more than 10,000 employees to pay at least 8% of payroll for health benefits, or contribute the difference to a state health care fund.

One thing that press accounts (Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, Gazette local papers) often failed to mention was that Wal-mart isn't the only firm with 10,000 plus employees. The others that I know of are Giant grocery stores, Northrop Grumman, and Johns Hopkins University.  The difference is that those three others already pay a "fair share" ie 8% or more for health care.

To other states that try to pass similar legislation, I would recommend that they push back constantly with that information, that Wal-mart isn't the only one subject to the legislation, it's just the only one that is such a miser.

Another theme to press home again and again is that our tax dollars are paying for their uninsured workers.  Today's WaPo had an interesting tidbit I had not seen before - it said that the AFL-CIO has tried to sue to find out how many Wal-mart employees are on Medicaid, but they can't get the information. No one knows what it costs the state.

According to a Nov. 17 WaPo article, Wal-mart pulled out all the stops in hiring lobbyists.  They spread money around, for example, funding conferences and other pet projects of some legislators.  I would think that with lobbyists in such bad repute these days, that plenty of publicity about the expensive Wal-Mart lobbyists will help the cause.

This was an exciting experience, and it feels so weird to actually win something!!  I hope Maryland is setting a great grassroots example and I know DFA and others will be on the front lines.