Is Walmart Spreading Swine Flu?

Walmart employees regularly come to work sick because they can’t afford the loss in wages or because they are afraid of being fired for taking ‘too many’ sick days.

When you get sick, do you take the day off? You should, especially if you have the flu or other viruses that are easily spreadable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agree, but Walmart, through its corporate policies, are not heeding that advice. In fact, a new mini report from the National Labor Committee shows that Walmart employees regularly come to work sick because they can’t afford the loss in wages or because they are afraid of being fired for taking ‘too many’ sick days. The whole report is worth a read, but here are a few key pieces:

But it is Wal-Marts policies on sick leave that are the problem. Wal-Mart has a punitive point (demerit) system that punishes workers who cannot come to work because they are ill or their children need care. Associates who miss a day due to sickness (or for any other reason) will receive a one point demerit, along with the loss of eight hours wages. Moreover, employees who “have more than three absence occurrences in a rolling six-month period…will be disciplined.” (“Attendance/Punctuality Policy (PD-52) New York,” January 2008.) Workers with four absences in any six-month period—no matter what the reason—will be disciplined. A fifth occurrence—like a sick day—will result in “active coaching” by management, and a sixth occurrence” will activate a “Decision Day,” when an “associate” can either be terminated or put on a year-long trial period, during which a worker can be fired for any infraction, no matter how insignificant. During this year-long probation the worker cannot receive a promotion.

Wal-Mart must immediately end its punitive point system, which gives workers demerits that can lead to firing for taking a sick day, while also docking their wages. More than any other Wal-Mart policy, it is the point system and loss of wages which routinely drives employees to work no matter how sick they are, including if they are suffering flu-like symptoms…

…The vast majority of current Wal-Mart employees are too terrified to speak openly and on the record, or even to name their stores for fear of retaliation. “Everyone knows you have to be quiet,” as one associate put it, “We cannot talk. Everyone is afraid and will never say anything critical” of Wal-Mart. A senior Wal-Mart employee agreed: “Fear and need will keep things as they are.”

It’s not a huge surprise, really. We hear from workers every day who can’t take sick time. But as flu season rolls around, and as H1N1 adds an additional level of concern, it’s time to take a look at Walmart’s policy again. Not only is this bad policy in general, bad for the workers and bad for the customers, it is potentially bad financially for Walmart. If, instead of going to work when they have the flu and getting seriously ill, Walmart allowed their workers to take a few days off and get better, perhaps Walmart’s work force would be more efficient and they wouldn’t have to pay so much in health care costs.