Amongst the Coronavirus crisis Target decided to offer each team member 30 days paid leave if they have any condition listed by the CDC as high risk. Yet management at my store did not tell team members about it. I only learned about the vulnerable Team Member paid leave through a Target employee from a different store.
The leave request is handled entirely through the Pay and Benefits number. Their menu has no clear direction as to which department handles the Coronavirus related leave requests. I had to cycle through all the options for 2 hours until I found the right department.
Altogether my first phone call took over 4 hours to talk to someone. They took my request, gave me the dates of my leave, and asked me to send a picture of my prescription bottle via email as proof of my condition.
The leave pay is calculated by taking the team member’s average hours and halving that. My average hours is 16 but my medical leave pay will only be half of that. They do not tell you this upfront. I had to ask the representative how they calculate the pay because they give the impression you’ll get your full average hours worth of pay, not half.
I waited several days for a confirmation email to be sent back to me about the proof of diabetes. Finally I tried to call them back but for two days they were so overloaded with calls they were rejecting new calls. When I was finally able to talk to a representative I was told I’d need a doctor’s note stating I need to be in quarantine for 30 days.
It took me over a day to get in touch with my doctor and during this time I didn’t know if the dates I were given for my leave were in effect or not, since it hadn’t been approved yet, or if I would even be paid for the leave. I couldn’t get any clear answers out of anyone at Target.
I tried to be patient about getting a confirmation email back because I knew the call centers were overwhelmed but after two days I called them again to confirmed they got the doctor’s note. After waiting another 2 hours on hold the representative confirmed they received the note and they would send an email to me when they either reject my leave request or approve it. They had no estimate of when I will get the email as they are so overwhelmed.
Finally, after 8 days of uncertainty, over 10 combined hours of waiting, and many emails I got an email confirming my medical leave was approved.
Target is touting the paid leave for vulnerable team members as a show of how much they care for their employees but how difficult and convoluted the process is reveals it’s just a PR move and they don’t care at all about their workers.
Target Workers Unite! 
Dear Target Workers Unite,
As a hospital epidemiologist with 40 years of experience I support your movement and feel that it is completely appropriate to require customers to wear a mask while they’re in the stores.
DIY masks are effective in blocking large droplets that can go at least 6 ft and probably more. A recent study out of MIT revealed that very small droplets called a aerosols can go 20 feet! With a cough or sneeze.
Unfortunately the DIY masks and even medical and surgical masks are not designed to protect the surgeon or the medical person from infection they are to protect the patient from bacteria and other organisms that shed from a persons nose normally.
But how you can get success with a DIY or medical mask is 100% compliance by everyone that works in the store and everyone that visits the store as a customer or in any other capacity.
Then everyone’s virus is blocked and cannot spread easily to anyone else.
Taking temperatures doesn’t work because over 50% of people don’t develop a fever and often minimal if any symptoms.
One approach is to provide customers DIY mask at the door if they don’t have a mask and make it clear that everyone has to wear a mask the entire time they’re in the store.
We’re in the mask is the most important of all recommendations and is what I believe can make a real difference with this problem.
So when you wear a mask you do it for others and everybody has to wear one to protect each other.
So I support your efforts 100% and hope that there will be a rapid response from target.
See our website maskssavelives.com which has a professional video that shows how a good mask that I designed can be made at home easily. Once you’ve made one or two it takes less than 10 minutes to produce a decent mask.
It would seem that target could help coordinate mask made it home in this fashion that would be adequate for all the employees. Making mask that can be handed out at the door for customers brings home the point that all shoppers and people entering the store should have mask to protect everyone including you.
Austria was early in making it an enforced requirement that anyone entering a grocery store or other business wear a mask. They have had successful in limiting the number of there cases and deaths. In the Czech Republic a movement called Mask4all had that realization that Asian Countries had much much lower trajectories of infection and magnitudes
lower total cases and deaths. The common denominator was universal was wearing. They did an emergency DIY mask making and made enough in 3 days for all 10 million people.
There R o dropped to 0.7 within a few weeks.
I be glad to help in anyway can. Consider organizing a peaceful and polite sign caring at the governors office indicating that “Masks Must be Mandatory “ for anyone entering an open business to protect the employees and protect everyone. For that matter as in NY, NJ, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Los Angeles and San Francisco masks are required for everyone in public and certainly when entering an open business. Don’t let Minnesota being the last with the most important recommendation of all!
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How long before you got paid because I finally got an email two days ago saying my leave was approved but still no pay.
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I told my HR that I wanted to take advantage of the 30 paid Vulnerable Leave. I’m a kidney transplant recipient. Immune compromised. But I was told no cause I’m vaccinated. My doctor told me that I’m still at a high risk even though I’ve been vaccinated. Don’t know what to do.
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