Target is the latest retail chain to stop providing health benefits to part-time employees, after the Minnesota-based store reported low enrollment in the worker "health care reform."
Trader Joe's Forever 21, and other big companies have ended their health insurance offerings to part-time workers, citing the implementation of the Affordable Care Act as of January 1st, 2014.
Corporations like Walmart cut their benefits for part-time employees years before universal health care came into effect - workers who clocked in for less than 24 hours a week weren't offered healthcare at the superstore in 2011. 35,000 members of Walmart's part-time staff were then taken onto full-time status fall of 2013, Forbes reported, allowing them to apply for benefits.
Some worker's rights activists see Target's move as a negative one.
"Major employers like Target should not be looking to taxpayers to subsidize an employee benefit they can more than afford to pay," executive director of the Retail Action Project Carrie Gleason told Forbes. The organization has demonstrated against reported worker's rights violations at Walmart and other companies in the past.
But according to head of HR at Target Jodee Kozlak, less than 10 percent of Target's employees have signed up for the part-time health plan.
"The launch of Health Insurance Marketplaces provides new options for healthcare coverage that we believe our part-time team members may prefer," he said. "In fact, by offering them insurance, we could actually disqualify many of them from being eligible for newly available subsidies that could reduce their overall health insurance expense."
But Gleason insisted on Tuesday that Target's move was one of a larger trend for retailers who are looking to cap employee's hours so they won't have to pay insurance charges.
"The real issue at play here is that employers consistently don't offer part-time employees health insurance," she told Forbes.
