Walmart fills military pay gap
Donald sends us a link to Walmart in which the company announced their intention to fill the gap differential for their military employees who find themselves called to active duty and taking a pay hit between the military and Walmart’s wages;
Today, Walmart announced expansions to its military leave of absence policy, offering differential pay to all eligible military associates taking on assignments lasting more than three days and through the duration of leave – including basic training. With the enhancements going into effect June 24, Walmart has offered differential pay since 2008, meaning that if an associate’s military salary is less than what they were making at their job at Walmart, the company will pay them the difference while they are on a military leave of absence. In 2016, Walmart associates took more than 4,400 military leave of absences.
The announcement continues;
According to the U.S. Department of Defense, in 2016, more than 200,000 men and women serving in the military transitioned to civilian life, and many find it difficult to navigate multiple agencies offering job placement and other services. To date, Walmart hired more than 170,000 veterans since it announced its Veterans Welcome Home Commitment in May 2013*. Of those veteran hires, more than 22,000 have been promoted to jobs with higher pay and greater responsibility.
On Memorial Day 2013, Walmart introduced the Veterans Welcome Home Commitment, which guaranteed a job offer to any eligible, honorably discharged U.S. veteran who was within 12 months of active duty. The initial goal was to hire 100,000 veterans by the end of 2018.
Walmart says they’re also giving $100,000 to the Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors (TAPS) which helps the survivors of troops who are killed on active duty. Good corporate citizenship.
Category: Support the troops
Good on Wal-Mart – if it isn’t just a publicity stunt with some token service members.
[Apologies for any undue cynicism on my part.]
Very few employees will get paid less by the military. Store managers that are mid-grade NCOs perhaps.
DoD had (may still have) a differential pay for those that deployed and lost income. A few restrictions on how much the difference had to be, but yeah – pretty much applied to doctors, lawyers and other professionals that make more in a private practice than on active duty.
There are some enlisted with PhDs or involved in high-dollar occupations (Realty?) that would qualify but insignificant compared to the size of the military.
Nevertheless, they still do.
So does my employer.
The job-offer thing for folks leaving active duty is a real plus. It is far easier to change jobs than to get the first one, as that established track record of “shows up and does work”, in the optional civilian context, means quite a bit.
Bravo to Wal-Mart, doing social good with their -own- money, while doing well too.
Versus the SJW crowd bitching about “exploitation” and demonizing Wal-Mart.
Thanks, Wal-Mart. You’ve got it going on.
So, let’s see:
$7.25hr(min wage) x 160(monthly work hours) = $1160.00
Monthly base pay for a Buck Private over nothing is $1480 a month. Divide 1480 by 160 gets you $9.25 an hour.
Wal-Mart pays no differential. Smoke and mirrors to get you to buy more Chinese junk.
Yeah, IF they’re making minimum wage when they go in the Reserves.
Walmart doesn’t pay minimum wage. The average retail worker is earning about $13/hour. It’s order fillers earn much more, as do supervisors, asst managers, and others. None other than CNN and the Huff Po have done positive stories about the rising wages at WalMart. I can’t say this isn’t a stunt but, if it is, it’s one that benefits some troops so that’s a good thing.
You’re right, Walmart does pay a bit more than min wage (~$9 in my area for entry level employees). I don’t know how much higher level employees make, but I would speculate that it’s probably in the 25-60k range. Those types of people typically have been in those jobs for some years and probably aren’t Privates on the military side either. Given that, Walmart probably won’t have to pay out much to cover the differential.
As a personal example, I was recently on TDY for a couple of months. Even though my gross pay of a GS-12 equivalent on the civilian side is larger, I netted more as a lowly O-1 during those months once you added up all the benefits you get on active duty (way lower tax rate, included healthcare, low life insurance, no 401K payments, BAH, etc.) vs all the stuff you have to pay for yourself as a civilian.
I think it’s nice that they’re offering a differential, but the net benefit in good publicity is probably greater for Walmart than for the affected service members. Thus, I would categorize this as a stunt. If they really wanted to show their support, they could offer some weeks of paid military leave, like we have in the federal service and with some contracting companies.
Stunt or not, and I don’t think it is, good for WallyWorld. Anything that betters the life of a trooper gets this old Chief’s stamp of approval.
And let’s not forget, that $9.25 goes up to around $15 once a stripper or dependa gets a hold of him!
Well Claw, there is one problem with your math.
After you complete the initial orientation and required computer learning for your job at WalMart, they bump you up to $10.00 an hour. I know this because after my medical retirement, I returned to Walmart and was moved out of the TLE job I had due to my disability making my handling 80 pound tires a hard thing to do.
Other jobs make more an hour, like overnight shifts, TLE technician, front end supervisors, the customer service desk (where you return the things you don’t want), the money center (where you cash your checks), deli… But hey, stay cynical.
Don’t even talk about BAH
Home Depot had the same offer when I joined up, but the military paid significantly more anyway. For those at the corporate offices this might be an actual thing. Even though it doesn’t apply to most, it’s still something good.
I like Walmart. Mostly because the left hates them but also because they provide low priced alternatives to those who cannot afford high quality stuff. The fact that most of their stuff is made in China is the fault of Nixon and Kissassinger with “detente”. Remember that?
Of course you don’t. Also blame Clinton and his “NAFTA”. Remember that? Of course you don’t.
Ok. Time for lunch.
Whatever. Walmart is a fucking garbage company that shits on it’s employees especially those doing their jobs in loss prevention by firing them for not curling up into a ball and crying when a theft occurs.
Fuck them and their fake ass military support tax write offs.
I disagree – they don’t have to do this, and while I am sure they earn good publicity by it, if it helps some of our folks out without penalizing anyone else – I’m all for it. You honestly think the anti-WM /moonbats of the world will be swayed to become WalMarters by this? I doubt they do either. This, at least superficially, looks like a good thing that does no harm.
And Target just fires those called to active duty.
Jesus Christ. Tough crowd. Proof of the statement that if you start handing out bricks of gold, people will bitch about how much they weigh.