Wal-Mart Digging Its Own Grave

Over at the Labor Blog,

Wal-Mart: Discriminate to Save Health Care Costs

The day after Wal-Mart's fake PR offensive to portray themselves as concerned about their employees health care and wages, Stephen Greenhouse -- who proves the NY Times still has some decent reporters -- reveals this internal memo from Wal-Mart. The memo calls for Wal-Mart saving money by forcing more employees into part-time work without benefits and discriminating against the unhealthy and disabled:

To discourage unhealthy job applicants, [the memo] suggests that Wal-Mart arrange for "all jobs to include some physical activity (e.g., all cashiers do some cart-gathering)."...

"It will be far easier to attract and retain a healthier work force than it will be to change behavior in an existing one," the memo said. "These moves would also dissuade unhealthy people from coming to work at Wal-Mart."

Wal-Mart has hopefully bought itself a nice Americans with Disabilities Act class action lawsuit. Or better, the publicity will force them to avoid any of the nasty proposals outlined in the memo, since any lawyer now has documented intent to discriminate in hand if they do.

Can somebody hand these guys a shovel? Man, this isn't just illegal, it's really really unethical as well. Too bad this won't change many people's minds who already shop there.