No, really, it’s on the splash page of the Wall Street Journal. Subscription required.
This is huge.
What unites us here today is our shared belief that it will be a far greater America when we get affordable health care for all Americans,” said Mr. Stern, who has been one of Wal-Mart’s staunchest critics but also publicly invited CEOs to work with him on the health-care problem. “This is not just a moral problem but a major drag on American business competitiveness and job creation.”
Mr. Scott said, “We put aside disagreements to drive this debate forward.”
AT&T, Intel, and The Communications Workers of America also joined in.
This is clearly a case where effective progressive and democratic electoral work is driving real change. Almost all major social justice initiatives in the U.S. have only come to fruition when pushed against the wall by organized, outspoken progressives working both inside and outside of establishment organizations like the democratic party and the labor unions.
It’s no coincidence that Wal Mart’s announcement comes on the heels of a string of disappointing same store sales results over the last several months: Wal Mart sees soft same store sales results>.
It all matters, Madman’s rants against the donklephants (love that term btw Madman), AG’s penetrating insights into the underbelly of our socioeconomic model, Real History Lisa’s fact based review of seminal events in our recent past, Supersoling’s peace activism and Green progressivism, Booman’s willingness to push “big blog” discourse, the electoral activism of MYDD and Kos. Envelope pushers like MSOC, BostonJoe and OPOL. The work and community building everyone here does every single day.
But we have still have a lot of work to do, and we must be ever vigilant. Now if we can just get a Fortune 500 CEO to speak against the war in Iraq and against escalation with Iran.
Wow. I’ve been wondering why we are not seeing more businesses push for universal healthcare since insurance costs are huge, but I never thought I would see the day when I would want to applaud Wal-Mart (even if it is self-serving).
In a set of recommendations I prepared for a unionized client last year (heavy republican givers) I suggested pushing universal health care as a partial way to mitigate Wal-Mart’s cost advantages.
Companies are starting to listen. I’m just suprised the Big Three Automakers and the UAW weren’t in on this. But they’re so dysfunctional they won’t jump in until 2011! (Hope I’m proven wrong in the next day or so)