Kroger asking workers to return some of the extra pay they received

[Roland99]

Link to tweet

Ooohhh. This is NOT gonna play well for them!

[napi21]

1. That's not asking. That's TELLING! See the words "listed below are 3 options for repayment"!

I wonder how far they'll go if they don't get any responses?

[greenjar_01]

2. can this be real? groceries stores have been making money hand over fist

[SheltieLover]

9. No kidding!

The Kroger near me pays all of $7.50/hour. Yet, their prices are sky high: $7.50 for 3 lbs potatoes & $18 for 6 rolls of paper towels, etc.

Maybe Kroger is fearful that their employees might be able to afford to eat a kittle bit of food. 🤬

[Newest Reality]

3. It sounds like...

It sounds like a good time to quit. I wonder if they will pursue it, though?

"Sorry Dude. Man, I am tapped out right now, low pay and all and you food prices are going up and..."

[Skittles]

4. ugh

they should just forfeit as hazard pay

[LizBeth]

5. Grocery stores have had the largest increase in costs in 50 years.

[uncle ray]

6. and?

[brush]

7. In their mark-ups and revenue too.

[SheltieLover]

8. This is ridiculous!

K&R!

[Massacure]

10. Kroger is within their rights to ask for this money back

At a federal level at least, if an employer finds a previous overpayment do to clerical or math errors, they are allowed to deduct it from future paychecks. Some states have rules restricting how an employer is allowed to go about this.

That said, Kroger should have known that the optics on this would look terrible. Assuming they can afford it, it would have been much more palatable to pay the Stupid Tax and let the employees keep the extra money for the sake of public relations.

[lpbk2713]

11. Did they share with the employees when times were good? Hell no.

Don't make me laugh.

[Generic Brad]

12. Was this one employee or many who were affected?

Was it one store or all stores? The absence of context is disconcerting.

[frazzled]

13. Apparently not all

Here’s an example I found:

Veronica Copeland’s last day at the Kroger in Morgantown, West Virginia, where she works was March 23. She has an autoimmune condition that meant she needed to take emergency leave when the pandemic was ramping up. Two weeks were paid, and then she was supposed to take her vacation time if she needed to remain out.

“They said they were going to pay me the following two weeks,” she said. “Well, they kept forgetting. Some other people were getting the pay, but I wasn’t, so I kept having to call my manager.” It took a couple of weeks for them to finally overnight her the paper checks.
She thought that would be the end of it, but then she got a letter saying, “As you may be aware, you were overpaid your Emergency Pay.” Kroger was asking for repayment. “They ask you to acknowledge it, sign for it, and to agree to one of three payback terms: one, two, or three installments that they will take out of your paychecks,” she said. It struck her as strange, so she called her union representative right away. “They said, ‘Don’t sign anything.’”

Copeland wasn’t the only one who’d received such a letter. She noticed people on an online forum discussing the letters. “Somebody had brought it up and a number of people were chiming in that they were paying it back,” she said. “I’m off work for the foreseeable future, as long as they will extend my leave. I don’t have any income coming in, so I don’t understand where they expect it to come out of. And I have to imagine I’m not the only one in that boat.”

https://www.dissentmagazine.org/blog/what-happened-to-krogers-hero-pay

It still sucks, but apparently this is selective cases for people who have taken leaves.

[JDC]

14. I guess I have to ask, was the person overplayed?

I am not sure I read into this that they are clawing back that pay because they didn't deserve to be paid under the Emergency payment offering. Just that they got 461 too much.

If it is due to the fact Kroger doesn't want to pay them for hours worked under the emergency conditions, Fuck That.

If it's that they accidentally got paid for 5 days when they worked 3, I understand the letter.

Maybe the March 1 date is a clue. When did Kroger implement their emergency pay policy?

I guess either way it seems shitty.