Rupert Roberts: Fascinated About His Workers Sexing Each Other

Sometimes, the newspaper reporting can produce some bizarre stories. Fitting into that category has to be the story in The Tribune of 20 July that Rupert Roberts, the owner of Supervalu is going to stop paying for the health insurance of pregnant women at his establishment because it appears they are having too many babies and this is affecting the cost of the premiums.  He says that maybe doing this will stop them from having sex on the job.  The quote needs no further comment.  It is comical but it is also foolish on its face:

“Pregnancies in young people in the past 24 months have really intensified. I have personnel who give me hiring and firing counts every week. Now I ask him to give me the pregnancies and birth numbers too. We were taking it in stride. It’s no problem covering the expenses but (senior staff) is seeing things in healthcare that is scaring them. We have a big reserve and they want to keep it big.

“It might discourage sex in the back room. We find them in coolers and everywhere else, the warehouse; back shots are easy you know, sex is a pretty easy thing.

I believe (going forward) girls are not going to think there is a particular advantage looking to work here because Super Value pays for pregnancies,” he said. “I think among the cashiers, they don’t care if they get pregnant or they say, ‘let me have my babies now if someone else is going to pay for it.’ Even husbands say, ‘let’s have the babies now, Super Value is paying.’ We were paying it every time. They loved it, the ones that were indulging in it.

“We have 750 beautiful women. Fellas came in and targeted them, got babies and don’t have to pay. We’re not going to put money up for that anymore, but instead for things like cancer and heart attacks and the like.”