Walmart’s decision not to apply for a grant program established by Vermont to provide as much as $2,000 to workers affected by the pandemic has caused several state senators to rip the company as “cruel” in a statement on Friday.
Vermont’s special pandemic state grants would have provided a financial bonus for the frontline workers in the state, including healthcare workers and grocery store employees. The state requires that the workers’ employer apply to the program on their behalf, citing “administrative simplicity” as the reason, but this means that none of the employees at Walmart’s six locations in Vermont will be eligible to receive the grants.
“We are extremely disturbed to learn that Walmart has indicated they will not allow their Vermont employees to receive essential worker hazard pay grants,” reads the statement from Vermont state Sens. Tim Ashe, Cheryl Hooker, Jane Kitchel, Chris Pearson, and Michael Sirotkin, according to Vermont Business Magazine.
“Their decision, cruel under any circumstances, is especially unthinkable since the grants are intended to thank essential workers who stayed on the job in high risk positions in the earliest days of the COVID pandemic,” they add.
Walmart told CBS MoneyWatch in a statement that it paid over $1.1 billion in bonuses to its workers across the country, and that it therefore did not need to apply for the program, which the company says is meant “to assist small and medium employers in the state who might be unable to pay a similar bonus.”
Theodore Bunker ✉
Theodore Bunker, a Newsmax writer, has more than a decade covering news, media, and politics.
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