Walmart has Reduced Paid Leaves for Covid Infected Workers

Walmart Inc will now provide only one week of paid leave to COVID-19 positive employees. The previous policy allowed them to have two-weeks off-time. This is according to a memo seen by Reuters.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Policy

U.S. hourly associates and long-haul drivers received a memo on last Tuesday. According to the memo, the COVID positive employees will one-week paid leave from work to complete quarantine. The company is changed its policy in light of guidelines from U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s updated last week. The guidelines recommends that the people will isolate for five days after getting the COVID-19 infection. Previously, the infected people had to to complete a ten-days quarantine period.

Labor Shortage Challenge

Walmart is the largest private employer in United States employing about 1.6 million workers. The retail giant is the first major retailer to reduce the paid leave time for COVID-19. Many other companies may change their paid leaves policy accordingly. The current spike in COVID-19 cases is posing the challenge of significant labor shortage for the employers. Many industries are battling with supply-chain issues, product shortages, rising inflation and rocketing transportation costs. A Walmart spokesperson confirmed the COVID-leave policy change. Workers who continue to be sick can potentially receive additional COVID-related pay for up to 26 weeks.

Pandemic’s Effect on Walmart’s Business

There are 600 Sam’s Club stores and more than 4,700 Walmart U.S. stores in the United States operating under Walmart. Last week, the company announced that they temporarily shut 60 stores in COVID-19 hot spots during December for sanitization purpose. Like other mass retailers, Walmart witnessed a massive increase in sales during the pandemic as more people shopped for groceries and home goods. The company raised its full-year annual sales and profit forecast in November but disappointed investors with higher labor and transportation costs that eroded margins.

The company’s stock is nearly flat over the past one year compared to the broader S&P 500 retailing index’s 20.6% rise over the same period.

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16.01.2022/0 Comments/by fahad

Strike Started at Kroger’s King Soopers Stores

The negotiations among Kroger’s King Soopers grocery store chain and the union which represents more than 8,700 Colorado workers had failed last week. The employees have now gone for a three-week strike started last Wednesday.

Disagreement on Proposal

More than 8,000 employees working at nearly 80 King Soopers stores went on strike. Their demands include higher wages and better benefits. The strike started at 7:00 a.m. ET. The workers on strike work at King Soopers stores in the Denver metropolitan area, Boulder, Parker and Broomfield cities of Colorado. This is the latest among the string of strikes posed by workers in United States. The events are quite similar to ones witnessed by Kellogg Co’s U.S. cereal plants and Deere & Co. The increased number of Omicron cases and rising inflation across United States is pushing workers to demand high wages and improved working conditions.

Union Demanding Higher Wages and Better Benefits

At King Soopers, the workers are demanding an increase of at least $6 an hour for all employees irrespective of their job classifications. However, the company have proposed an increase of $4.5 an hour based on job classification and tenure. This is a bit higher compared to their previous proposal. However, the union has decided to call off the negotiations and they started the strike on Wednesday.

According to company’s final offer, they will invest $170 million in wages and bonuses during the next three years. Alongside, it will offer a staring pay of $16 an hour and will offer better healthcare benefits. The negotiations were going on for some time. Last month, the retail giant offered more than $145 million in new wages during the next four years. This will bring the average hourly wage for 75% of associates to more than $18 and to over $20 for more than 50% of them. The union rejected the offer, following which the company sweetened it to $148 million in wages and signing bonuses over three years.

King Soopers Filed Charge of unfair Practices

Amid to strike, the company has now filed unfair practices charge against the union for refusing to bargain in good faith. King Soopers stated in a statement on last Monday. The union has not given any indication of when they will return to the negotiation process.

King Soopers operates more than 100 store chains in Colorado. They are state’s number one grocery chain store in terms of market share. Its sales have boomed during the pandemic, with shares of its parent Kroger hitting a record high last week.

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15.01.2022/0 Comments/by fahad

Employment USA, Texas Employment

MP Materials will Create More Than 100 Jobs

MP Materials Corp. is planning to build an initial rare earth (RE) metal, alloy and magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas. The facility will also create more than 100 skilled jobs.

MP Materials will develop a 200,000 square foot greenfield metal, alloy and neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnet manufacturing facility. The plant will also serve as the business and engineering headquarters for its growing magnetics division, MP Magnetics. MP’s initial magnetics facility will have the capacity to produce approximately 1,000 tons of finished NdFeB magnets per annum. In addition, he production facility will have the potential to power approximately 500,000 EV motors annually. The NdFeB alloy and magnets produced will also support other key markets, including clean energy, electronic and defense technologies. The facility will also supply NdFeB alloy flake to other magnet producers to help develop a U.S. magnet supply chain.

Agreement with General Motors

The company also announced that it has entered a long-term agreement with General Motors. The idea is to supply U.S.-sourced and manufactured rare earth materials, alloy and finished magnets to GM for their electric vehicle production. MP Materials owns and operates the Mountain Pass Rare Earth Mine and Processing Facility in San Bernardino County, CA. The company’s visions is to enhance their alloy and magnet capacity in the future. This is to consume a greater percentage of its primary production and supply growing U.S. demand.

More than 100 Jobs

MP Materials said the facility will create more than 100 skilled jobs. It will be located in the AllianceTexas development in far north Fort Worth. “MP Materials has built an exceptional magnetics team and important commercial relationships. This will accelerate our mission to restore the full rare earth supply chain to the United States. This is a momentous occasion for the reshoring of the American supply chain, and we are grateful for GM’s confidence, commitment and leadership.” MP Materials Chairman & CEO, James Litinsky stated in his statement.

Although development of permanent magnets originated in the United States, the U.S. has virtually no capacity to produce these NdFeB magnets today. MP Materials said these magnets are fundamental building blocks in modern technologies and will increase in importance as the global economy electrifies and decarbonizes.

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15.01.2022/0 Comments/by fahad

Walmart has Reduced Paid Leaves for Covid Infected Workers

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Policy

Labor Shortage Challenge

Pandemic’s Effect on Walmart’s Business

Strike Started at Kroger’s King Soopers Stores

Disagreement on Proposal

Union Demanding Higher Wages and Better Benefits

King Soopers Filed Charge of unfair Practices

MP Materials will Create More Than 100 Jobs

Agreement with General Motors

More than 100 Jobs

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