Walgreens Just Showed Us Why America Needs a National Guaranteed Paid Holiday Standard [View all]
When Walgreens employees opened their schedules in October, many discovered a quiet but devastating change: the company would no longer pay hourly workers for major holidays, including Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, and Labor Day, unless they actually worked those days.
According to Bloomberg, employees who previously met basic eligibility requirements had received paid holidays even if they didn’t clock in. Now that benefit vanishes unless they physically show up. And this shift came just weeks after private-equity giant Sycamore Partners acquired the company (CNN report).
This isn’t an isolated cost-cutting measure. Walgreens has been laying off staff, closing stores, and restructuring operations for months. Last year, the company announced it would shutter 1,200 stores nationwide. Just last month, it laid off 80 corporate workers. Now it’s holiday pay.
In many ways, Walgreens is telling on America, exposing a simple truth: the United States has no labor standards protecting paid holidays, and corporations will eliminate them the moment they become inconvenient.
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