MARTINEZ — Workers and labor activists are calling on Walmart to give employees a higher wage for shifts that fall on holidays, something companies across a slew of industries already practice.
As part of Making Change at Walmart, a campaign from the United Food and Commercial Workers international labor union, union members and activists demonstrated outside a Walmart store on Arnold Drive in Martinez on Monday, kicking off the first of what organizers said would be several coordinated protests at Walmart stores across the country.
Making Change at Walmart organizer Jenny Divish, along with former Walmart employee Gabriel Portugal and UFCW Local 5 representative Bambi Marien, handed a petition to a manager at the Walmart store that urged Walmart to give an increased hourly wage to workers on holiday shifts.
“We believe the holidays are a special time of year. However, Walmart’s policy eliminating holiday pay in 2016 sends a strong message that there is nothing special about the holidays when it comes to how Walmart treats and pays its workers,” the petition said. “If Walmart is going to remain open on major holidays like Thanksgiving and New Year’s, then it should bring back holiday pay so workers are fairly compensated for all that they give up to make the holidays happen.”
Walmart contends that it never eliminated “holiday pay.” A spokesman said the retailer has never offered an increased hourly wage. Instead, Walmart workers could earn one paid day off for a holiday they worked.
In 2016, Walmart changed the way workers accrue paid time off. A policy that went into effect in March 2016 streamlined paid vacation, sick time, personal time and holiday time into one category, instead of having employees accrue those types of paid time off separately.
“Our paid time off program is designed to give associates more stability in their lives,” said Walmart spokesman Blake Jackson. “It’s important to note that both full- and part-time employees receive a paid day off for each holiday, and it’s important for associates to decide how they want to use that time.”
Employees can roll over their paid time off each year or receive pay in lieu of taking off those days.
“Those options and flexibility are available to them now in a way that they haven’t been before,” Jackson said.
But activists argue that Walmart should offer an increased wage for holiday shifts.
Divish said she previously worked in a grocery store that paid her three times her normal hourly wage for working on holidays.
There is nothing in state law that requires employers to pay workers a premium for work performed on holidays, unless a worker has worked more than eight hours on a workday or more than 40 hours in the work week.
Many companies do offer an increased hourly rate for holiday shifts, however.
Target, for example, said in a news release earlier this year that it “compensates all hourly team members who work on national holidays, including Thanksgiving, with pay equal to time-and-a-half their hourly rate.”
Advocates, including members of the Central Labor Council of Contra Costa County, stood outside the store, holding signs and talking to Walmart shoppers to raise awareness of their cause.
“An injustice to one is an injustice to all,” said Jim Vaughan, a teacher in Pittsburg who came out with the labor council to demonstrate.
Gabriel Portugal, a former Walmart employee and Richmond resident, said he wishes Walmart would close for the Thanksgiving holiday, but if it stays open, he would like to see employees receive a higher wage for hours worked on a holiday.
“We want workers to feel like they’re being treated with dignity and respect,” Divish said.
