Taking care of business

IT’S GETTING harder and harder to understand why Walmart still draws protesters. In the last few years the company has expanded paid maternity leave and raised hourly wages; now it’s launched an emergency leave policy for folks who have to quarantine because of exposure to the coronavirus.

It’s paid leave. It’s not like the government required Walmart to do this. The top brass made this decision on its own.

As the Associated Press put it: “The nation’s largest private employer also said Tuesday that hourly workers who work in a store, club, office or distribution center will receive up to two weeks pay if they’re required to quarantine by the government or by the retailer. Workers who have a confirmed case of the new virus will also receive two weeks of pay. If they are not able to return to work after that time, additional pay may be provided for up to 26 weeks for both full-time and part-time hourly workers.”

It looks like the folks in Bentonville are all right, maybe even better than all right. Doubtless they sleep better o’ night.

We all know it’s unlikely that Washington is going to get anything done quickly, so the nation’s largest private employer is stepping up to tackle the problem.

It would be great to see other Fortune 500 companies do the same. Marriott Hotel workers, McDonald’s employees, and hourly laborers in the service industry are going to need relief if they get orders to quarantine.

Most folks can’t afford to take two weeks off work. Either they’ll be fired, or run out of money because they’re living paycheck to paycheck. Maybe both.

Walmart higher-ups realize this and have taken steps to address it. Maybe giant corporations aren’t all evil like Bernie Sanders and his ilk espouse. We’ll be waiting for a tweet from his campaign praising Walmart for this decision. But we won’t be holding our breath. (Even though, in this climate, we’d like to.)