Grocery chain Aldi said Tuesday that it will give its employees two hours an hour of pay for each vaccine dose they receive, giving employees a total of four hours of paid time off. Aldi also said it will “cover the cost of administering vaccines” for workers seeking to get vaccinated.
Aldi “ensures that all hourly workers who want to receive the vaccine can do so without fear of losing pay or taking time away from work,” the company said in a press release.
Aldi joins Dollar General, Trader Joe’s and Instacart as major US corporations taking similar steps.
Dollar General(DG) said last week it will give its employees a one-time payment equal to four hours of pay after receiving a completed vaccination. Trader Joe’s will give workers “2 extra hours of wages per dose to take the time to get vaccinated,” Kenya Friend-Daniel, a company spokesman, said in an email.
Instacart, the on-demand grocery delivery platform, also said last week that it will provide financial assistance to its store personnel and independent contractors.
Beginning February 1, Instacart will have a $ 25 “vaccine support allowance” available to in-store employees and its independent contractors who have been vaccinated. To be eligible, the independent buyers must have shopped and delivered a minimum of five batches for the business in the past 30 days.
Companies’ policies are gaining momentum as vaccine roll-out in the United States is slow to get underway. According to the latest CDC data, more than 31 million vaccine doses have been distributed so far and more than 10 million people have received their first dose. Federal officials had said 20 million people would have received the first doses by the end of December.
Most states still only vaccinate health workers and residents and staff in long-term care settings such as nursing homes, Kaiser said last week. Critical workers, such as retail and supermarket workers, will be vaccinated at later stages of the rollout, but their eligibility for the vaccine varies by state.
Aldi, Trader Joe’s, Instacart and Dollar General are all stopping compulsory vaccinations for their employees.
Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine expert at the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, said mandates don’t make sense right now due to supply restrictions. They would also be “too provocative on this point” and elicit a reaction in anti-vaccination groups.
“Right now it’s a great idea to encourage workers to get vaccinated and establish a leave policy for that purpose,” he said, adding that the mandates could be revised once more people are vaccinated and more. doses are available.
Seventy-two percent of current and recent CEOs of large companies said they were open to vaccine mandates, according to a poll held last month at a virtual summit by Yale’s Chief Executive Leadership Institute. The broad question did not specify whether the mandate would apply to all employees or only those who have to work in close proximity to clients and colleagues.
—CNN Business ”Matt Egan and Sara O’Brien contributed to this article.
