Reply #23: So--how many hours does WalMart consider "full time"? [View All]

[Bridget Burke]

Another poster said that 35 hours was considered full-time in "retail." Your wife gets those fine benefits from WalMart--could she do so on less than 40 hours per week?

Critics Say Wal-Mart Grows Part-Timers to Cut Benefits

By Amy Joyce
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, May 26, 2006; Page D02

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is shifting a portion of its full-time employees to part-time status, company critics say, which they assert will have the effect of limiting health insurance, even though the company is expanding coverage for its part-time workers....

The new benefit plan for "Peak-Time" workers -- Wal-Mart's name for part-timers -- also shortens the waiting period for part-time employees to obtain coverage to one year from two years. But the plan will be unaffordable for workers who are moved from full-time wages to part-time, said Chris Kofinis, a spokesman with WakeUp Wal-Mart, a group funded by the United Food and Commercial Workers union....

Those workers who are moved to part-time status can keep their current health plan until the end of the year, but they will lose other benefits such as dental and life insurance, and short- and long-term disability as soon as they move to part-time hours, according to the plan document.

Employees are told if they keep the plan they had as full-time employees after they move to part-time status, however, "your cost for this coverage will not change and you may be working fewer hours."

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052502162.html

Thanks for the info!

Edited to add: Re-reading the OP, I noted that some workers were being cut to 6 hours per week. Please--explain to us why this is good.