From The Food Nation Radio News Desk
Grocer Bonus Pay Revoked – Well, that “Hero Pay” that was doled out to grocery workers who showed up while others were forced to stay home didn’t last long. An unnamed Twitter user posted a redacted picture of a letter from the HR Department at the Kroger store where he/she presumably works. Posted below, it says:
“As you may be aware, you were overpaid your Emergency Pay in the gross amount of $461.60”
Then the letter goes on to ask this employee to repay one of the biggest companies in America!
“Failure to repay the overpayment could result in further collection efforts.”
As you can imagine, the very embarrassing picture that paints Kroger in a very bad light has been retweeted tens of thousands of times since Monday. Kroger was finally prompted to make an official announcement that also sounds like a mea culpa.
“We’ve instructed our payroll department to directly inform the small number of associates affected by the recent overpayments of Emergency Leave of Absence pay that we will not seek repayment.”
From FoodandWine.com: In Kroger’s defense, the company says it’s spent about $700 million to deal with the coronavirus pandemic, including additional pay to employees. And the grocer is far from the only major company with plans to phase out coronavirus-related worker bonuses: Yesterday, the Detroit Free Press reported that Costco, Whole Foods, CVS and others likely have end dates for their bonus pay arriving in the next month. But looking back to Kroger specifically, the company also reported net earnings of $1.659 billion for its most recent year. That’s not to say that employee pay doesn’t add up, but all of this does put 461 bucks into perspective—pandemic or not. Therefore, Grocer Bonus Pay was Revoked.
Image by Andrew Khoroshavin from Pixabay
