Wal-Mart has a champion: The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA). According to this article, Retail Group Sues to Block Laws Targeting Wal-Mart, RILA filed two lawsuits in US District Courts in Baltimore and Brooklyn challenging statutes passed in Maryland and Suffolk County, New York that require Wal-Mart "to spend more on employee health care." A RILA press release asserts the statutes "target specific companies, and require them to pay a special health care payroll assessment."
The Maryland complaint challenges the Fair Share Health Care Fund Act. This statute requires companies with 10,000 or more employees to spend "on employee health insurance for their Maryland employees [] at least 8 per cent of the 'total compensation' they provide Maryland employees." Companies failing to make the requisite expenditures must pay a mandatory civil penalty of $250,000.
Citing numerous press reports, RILA alleges the statute was passed initially to target Wal-Mart because the retail giant is only one of four private employers having 10,000 or more employees in Maryland and is the only such employer "expected to be required to make additional payments--either to health care costs or to the State--as a result of the Act." According to the complaint, the statute violates both the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution and the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA).
The complaint filed in Brooklyn, also filed on February 7, 2006, challenges the Suffolk County Fair Share for Health Care Act. According to the complaint, this statute "requires large retail grocery stores in Suffolk County to make health care expenditures on behalf of every employee at a rate of no less than $3 per hour worked." An employer that is a signatory to a collective bargaining agreement is exempt from the statute apparently "regardless whether they make the same level of health care expenditures required of covered employers, or whether they provide health benefits at all." The complaint alleges:
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that the statute is preempted by ERISA and the National Labor Relations Act;
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that it violates Section 1983 of the Civil Rights Act, the Equal Protection Clause of the US Constitution, and Article I, Section 8, Clause 3 of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution; and
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that it violates New York State's Minimum Wage Act, Article IX of the New York Constitution, and New York's Municipal Home Rule Law.
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