Portland’s ‘essential’ grocery workers fear both falling ill, being fired for organizing

On the morning of April 4, employees of Trader Joe’s in Portland awoke to a letter in their mailboxes from company CEO Dan Bane. The letter, which was sent to every company employee, called attention to the “barrage of union activity that has been directed at Trader Joe’s and other ‘non-union’ grocers during this difficult time.”

In the letter, Bane asserts that labor advocates at Trader Joe’s are seeking to “drive discontent,” and that the issues they raise are ultimately “a distraction” for employees. Bane accused those advocates of taking advantage of the pandemic and economic crisis to drive their agenda. 

Labor organizing in essential industries has grown across the country in recent weeks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the most part, workers across industries are demanding the same things, which they say will keep them safe as they continue to do their jobs: safer working conditions, COVID-19 testing, hazard pay or increased compensation, and paid sick leave.  

Whole Foods grocery store workers held a national sick-out last week making some of these demands, but at the Whole Foods in Portland, the sick-out didn’t make much of an impact. A Whole Foods employee who asked not to be named out of fear of retribution described many of their coworkers as having values that align with the strike, but said that many of them can’t afford to miss a day of work.

“All of my immediate co-workers are there working all their normal full time shifts, but not because they want to, but because they need the money,” the worker said. “Plus, I think that like the Amazon workers in New York City, [Whole Foods would] fire anyone on the spot who tries to organize.” 

Workers on the front lines

While Mainers who can do so are now mostly staying at home following the statewide shelter-in-place order that went into effect on April 2, grocery store employees are still heading to work.

Some stores have responded with safety measures for workers, including capping the number of customers allowed in the store, regularly cleaning surfaces, and providing sanitizer and gloves to employees. Last week, some stores began providing workers with masks and plastic barriers following newly updated guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. However, many grocery store workers say they feel inadequately protected. 

According to several workers at stores in Maine, grocery store employees are finding it difficult to follow physical distancing protocols, both in interactions with co-workers and customers.

Workers are often forced to stand within six feet of each other to perform tasks, like working the register with a bagger, staffing the deli, or accessing break rooms. The Portland Whole Foods employee explained that “customers will come up within a foot of your face asking questions.” 

“I don’t have a face mask,” they said, “so it’s up to me to care for my personal safety. And we’re still required to keep up our customer service, and interact with people. Ultimately the customer comes first.”

Whole Foods began providing Portland employees with face masks on April 6. 

To mitigate the problem of coming into close contact with customers, Trader Joe’s in Portland has assigned someone to monitor the store and remind customers and co-workers to maintain physical distance. According to one Trader Joe’s employee, however, even when distancing protocols are being followed, there is still a lot of exposure in grocery stores.

When the Portland location opened for weekend shopping, customers “waiting to enter the store were standing six feet apart, in a line that stretched all the way around the parking lot,”  they said.

Another anonymous Trader Joe’s employee said that “even though the store is seeing less than half of the traffic it usually does, that still means there are about 1,000 customers coming and going every day.” 

“That’s a lot of people to come into contact with, even if it’s sometimes indirect,” they added.

Older workers more at risk

With the significant foot traffic, many workers don’t feel they are safe. For older, more vulnerable workers, the situation can be even more precarious.

The second Trader Joe’s employee shared the story of a co-worker who is over 65 years old and “has no savings, no retirement, and is living paycheck to paycheck. There are plenty of older employees who are electing not to work and relying on their savings, but there are others like her who can’t afford that.” 

They continued, “It’s terrible that the company isn’t offering paid leave for them, or laying them off so they can get unemployment.”

In recent weeks, some stores have also attempted to address calls from employees for hazard pay. Both Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s have responded by raising all employee wages by $2 an hour before taxes. 

According to employees from both stores, many of their coworkers are happy to see the pay bump. However, the Whole Foods employee said the raise “feels a bit like a crumb. We get paid time and a half on holidays, and we’re not even getting that now. But it’s a crumb that so many of the employees are willing to accept because they need whatever they can get. I think a lot of people are feeling grateful to have anything at all.”  

Bezos ‘can invest more’ in his workers

The letter that Trader Joe’s CEO Bane sent to his employees was in response to rising talk of unionization at store locations around the country. In the letter, Bane points to the company’s overall reputation of treating its workers well: offering an affordable healthcare plan, free dental insurance, and raises every six months.

According to Bane, “any Crew Member who critically considers the question will conclude that being a Crew Member at Trader Joe’s beats being a ‘member’ of a union.”

Rather than exploiting the pandemic, as Bane said, labor leaders and low wage workers say they are simply demanding what they deserve as the people risking exposure to keep the nation fed and operational in the most unprecedented public health and economic crisis in modern history. They say that the crisis has shown that some of the lowest paid workers are some of the most essential.

Over the past two weeks, Amazon warehouse employees in Chicago and New York, and Instacart delievery gig-workers held strikes. On April 7, workers for Target’s delivery service, Shipt, staged a walkout over demands for hazard pay, paid leave and protective gear. USPS workers across the country are petitioning for hazard pay.

Workers at a chicken processing plant in Virginia, and a flan and gelatin factory in Illinois both held strikes. In Massachusetts, 13,000 unionized carpenters walked off the job demanding Gov. Charlie Baker close all construction sites across the state.

In the Bronx and Manhattan, nurses are protesting understaffing and the near absence of personal protective gear.

Much of this activity is concentrated in New York, the current epicenter of the pandemic in the U.S.. The peak of COVID-19 cases in Maine is projected to arrive in the coming weeks. 

“Almost everyone is losing money right now, but not Jeff Bezos,” the Whole Foods employee said, referring to the CEO of Amazon, the wealthiest person in the world, who purchased the grocery chain 2017. “He can afford to invest more in the protections and benefits of his workers.”

Photo: Mike Mozart, Creative Commons via Flickr