This story was updated at 7:02 p.m.
BURLINGTON — Lawmakers said Thursday the state has extended the deadline for Vermont’s hazard pay grant program, after many major employers in Vermont have been slow — or have refused — to apply.
Sens. Tim Ashe, Chris Pearson and Michael Sirotkin gathered at the CVS Pharmacy in downtown Burlington to urge the company — as well as Walmart, Home Depot, Costco, Target and four other large corporations — to apply for the state’s hazard pay grant program as the Friday deadline approaches.
If those employers miss the new deadline, which is set for Nov. 18, they could deny hazard pay grants to as many as 5,000 essential workers, Ashe said.
The grant program provides $1,200 and $2,000 checks to workers who were on the front lines during the early weeks of the pandemic. Only workers making $25 or less hourly are eligible. For workers to receive the grants, companies need to identify which employees are eligible.
“Each of these sites has a large number of Vermont employees, many of whom are eligible [for the grants],” said Ashe, D/P-Chittenden, the Senate pro tem, “and literally will be blocked from receiving their $1,200 because someone, somewhere in a far-off office is unwilling to take a few minutes of administrative time to verify which employees are eligible.”
Amy Thibault, a CVS spokesperson, told VTDigger after the press conference the company planned to submit an application before Friday. Last week, the grocery chain Shaw’s, after public pressure, said it too would apply, after an initial delay.
But lawmakers say other of Vermont’s employers have been reluctant.
Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, said some employers had complained of time constraints, though the application process was “very simple.” Other companies, according to Ashe, said they would not apply because they believed that the program was meant only for small and medium-sized businesses.
“This is actually not a program designed for businesses at all,” Ashe said. “It’s designed for frontline essential workers, regardless of the size of their employers.”
Target will not apply for the program. In a statement, a spokesperson said the store believes the money should go to employees of small and family-owned businesses.
“Target has invested significantly in the safety and well-being of our team members,” the spokesperson said in a statement. “We plan to invest an additional $1 billion this year in increased wages, benefits and several bonuses for our team members.”
Target paid employees $2 more per hour from March 20 to July 4, and increased the starting minimum wage to $15 per hour on July 5, according to the spokesperson
Walmart or Costco have not yet applied. Neither company responded immediately to inquiries from VTDigger.
The first phase of the program began in June, when $28 million was distributed primarily to frontline employees in health care and human services. This second phase of the program, which will distribute another $30 million to workers, will give out grants to employees at grocery stores, retailers, waste management services, and several other industries, who worked at least 68 hours between March 13 and May 15. The Department of Financial Regulation is administering the second phase, using federal coronavirus relief funds.
At least $4 million in grants remain, said Ashe, adding that if more businesses applied that had eligible workers, “we will find a way to come up with the additional money.” The program was expanded by $8 million last week in part to provide enough grants for workers at large chains like Walmart and Costco.
Even if Walmart and others do apply to the grant program in time, many of Vermont’s essential workers will be left without hazard pay for their work since May. On Oct. 27, Burlington’s grocery co-op City Market cut hazard pay for its workers to $50 a week and will end it entirely on Jan. 2, and it was one of the last to do so; most local grocery stores have not offered hazard pay to employees since the summer, and many essential businesses did not raise wages at all.
“We’ve acknowledged in the hazard pay grant program that for a lot of workers in Vermont, they had to go to work,” said Pearson, P/D-Chittenden. “So that we could have groceries. So that we could have basic elements of our life met. They did not have the opportunity to stay at home.”
The grants, he continued, are “a small token of our ability to say thank you to tens of thousands of workers across the state.”
Clarification: An earlier version of this story referred imprecisely to City Market’s actions on hazard pay. It reduced the bonus to $50 a week on Oct. 27 and plans to end it entirely on Jan. 2.
