In the last few weeks, lawmakers have called out big employers like Walmart for refusing to apply to Vermont’s hazard pay grant program, which rewards frontline workers for their dedication in the early weeks of the pandemic.
Now, lawmakers say many of those companies — including Walmart, Target, Costco and Home Depot — have applied, thanks to public pressure and an extended program deadline, which arrived Wednesday. Their employees will join the estimated 30,000 Vermont workers who will receive a $1,200 or $2,000 check in the coming weeks.
The program, which spanned two phases, will disburse a total of $60 million to Vermont workers. The first phase benefited mostly health care workers, but this second phase included more than two dozen categories of employers.
One of those workers is Amy Wood, an employee at a Walmart in St. Albans. “When I heard about the grants Vermont was giving, I was excited,” she told VTDigger. She was disappointed, she said, when it seemed that the company was not going to apply. “That money would very much help me and my family,” she said.
A handful of large companies did not apply, state Sen. Tim Ashe told VTDigger, including Dollar General, Jiffy Mart and Aldi. As a result, a significant number of workers will not get the benefit. For instance, Ashe said, Dollar General has 37 locations in the state, all with eligible employees.
The program benefits only workers, not businesses. But, for their employees to receive the grants, companies had to determine which of their workers were eligible, and then apply for the funds on their behalf.
Only workers who made less than $25 an hour in retail and grocery stores and several other businesses, and who had worked at least 68 hours between March 13 and May 15, were eligible for the program.
Ashe defended legislators’ decision to require the involvement of businesses. That was “the way to administer it and get it right.” But it was “mystifying,” he said, that some companies were reluctant to apply.
“It doesn’t cost them a penny,” Ashe said. “It takes virtually no time for these sophisticated companies to fill out the application. It’s, like, a few clicks at their human resources department.”
In a press release Tuesday, Ashe and four other state senators commended Walmart and several other companies for their eventual choice to apply.
But Wood said that, while she was happy the company applied, she felt lingering frustration.
“It should not have taken pressure from members of the state government to make that happen,” she said. “They should have been eager to help their employees.”
And even with the one-time grant, she and other workers face precarious job situations as cases surge. She will lose her job at Walmart in January, as child care needs prevented her from switching her schedule to overnight shifts. She has worked at the company for almost five years.
The grant, she said, is “too little, too late for me and many others.”
Highest-risk workers
More than 1,100 Vermont employers had applied to the program as of Nov. 13. Not all, though, will be accepted under state guidelines.
Walter Freed runs two full-service gas stations, in Bennington and West Pawlet, and told VTDigger the program rejected his business.
“Our employees went to work. They weren’t people who were told to stay at home,” he said. “We’re in close contact with the customers, like anybody else.”
But Freed’s stations did not fall into the program’s list of eligible retail employers. He said he did not provide hazard pay to his workers himself, though he did continue to pay employees who chose to stay home in the first weeks of the pandemic.
Ashe said the hazard pay program was designed to focus only on workers at the highest risk. And compared to other states, the program is expansive.
“Vermont is one of only three states that has done anything for people who work in retail,” Ashe said. “My hope is that people will be glad to know they live in a state where the decision-makers said, you know what, it’s about time someone recognized the people who don’t get paid a lot, and don’t have glamorous jobs, but who have put their neck on the line for all of us.”
The program is retroactive. Workers who began to work at the retail companies after May 15 will not be eligible for grants — even now, as the pandemic worsens.
Ashe said he doubts the grant program will be extended without another federal relief package.
“I am joined by most legislators in hoping there is another relief package, and that some of those funds can be used to support people in the highest risk positions,” Ashe said.
In the meantime, Ashe and the other senators who have pushed for the grant program say it’s a victory that out-of-state corporations have filed last-minute applications.
“Thousands more workers are getting coverage; millions of more dollars are going out the door to essential workers who we felt very strongly should be acknowledged,” said state Sen. Michael Sirotkin, D-Chittenden, who lobbied for the program. “I’m very thankful.”
