Local Wal-Mart workers get a raise
Every employee to make at least $10 an hour
Fatter paychecks came today for more than 1,800 Wal-Mart sales associates in Hamilton County — and about 1.2 million WalMart and Sam’s Club workers around the country — as part of what the retail giant calls “the largest single-day, private-sector pay increase ever.”
Wal- Mart, which has the most employees of any U. S. company, has increased its minimum wage to at least $10 an hour.
“This is going to be a good thing, and it’s moving in the right direction,” said Raymond Daigneault, assistant manager of the Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market in East Brainerd. “The boost in morale around the store is clear to see.”
Wal-Mart says its average fulltime hourly wage is now $ 13.38 an hour, and its average part-time wage is $10.58 an hour.
The raises that show up in today’s paychecks are the second step of a two-part increase announced last year. It will cost Wal-Mart $2.7 billion over two years in higher wages, training and additional benefits, the company says.
The hikes come after Wal-Mart has been criticized for not paying its workers enough, including in speeches by Democratic presidential contender Bernie Sanders. The pay hike also will make Wal-Mart more attractive to employees in a labor market that has tightened, since unemployment in Chattanooga is now at an eight-year low.
A University of Tennessee at Chattanooga economics professor expects Wal-Mart’s customers will foot the bill.
“Wal-Mart has been under substantial pressure to [give raises],” UTC Economist Bruce Hutchison said. “I don’t think that type of pressure, from particularly the political sectors, is desirable. Politicians should stay out of individual business decisions as to how much they pay and to whom they pay it — as long as they don’t discriminate.”
The raises don’t go far enough, said the spokeswoman for a unionbacked campaign that targeted WalMart’s pay and benefits.
“Wal- Mart has been under a lot of pressure from us and many others over the past decade about the way they treat their workers,” said Jess Levin, spokeswoman for Making Change at Wal- Mart, a campaign of The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “We don’t think it’s enough.”
Wal- Mart and Sam’s Club also have launched a new, simplified, paid time off policy that puts paid vacation, sick time, personal time and holiday time into one category.
Wal-Mart also provides a new, short-term disability “basic” plan at no cost to full- time hourly associates that the company says “offers more financial protection to workers who need to be away from work for an extended period of time due to their own medical needs such as an illness, injury or having a baby.”
The basic plan will pay 50 percent of a worker’s average weekly wage, up to $200, for up to 26 weeks. Wal-Mart also offers a shortterm disability “enhanced” plan that costs less than the company’s prior voluntary plan and provides associates up to 60 percent of their average weekly wage with no weekly maximum for up to 26 weeks.
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/Meets ForBusiness or twitter.com/meet forbusiness or 423-757-6651.