Union Voice/Readers Write: Time to make shopping safer

"Have you looked into the safety procedures of our essential grocery stores?" writes Terry Cavanagh at the SEIU MD&DC State Council. "For example, why haven’t they all switched to one-way shopping a la Aldi and IKEA? This would make it much easier to maintain social distancing. Also, Trader’s Joe’s, owned by the same Germany-based, multi-national corporation that owns Aldi, is responding to safety concerns by staff by running an aggressive anti-union campaign. If the NLRB is postponing all union elections, why not have a moratorium on such (anti-union) campaigns?"
In terms of enhanced safety policies in stores staffed by UFCW Local 400 members, click here for a rundown of all four of their major grocery employers; Giant & Kroger have recently announced plans to implement one-way aisles in stores along with limits on the number of customers. Local 400 (and UFCW more broadly) are continuing to push their employers, policymakers and elected officials to implement a suite of new policies, including declaring grocery store workers “first responders” or emergency personnel so they have access to the benefits and protections others in those categories receive, especially access to testing, treatment, and personal protective equipment, limiting the number of customers in a store to 10 people per 10,000 square feet and a maximum of 50 people in a store at a given time to be enforced by additional security staff as well as a host of other safety measures, including mandatory wiping down of grocery carts, self-scan screens, and credit card touch screens after each use and public address announcements at regular intervals reminding people to maintain a 6-foot distance from employees and other customers. Read more here.
- Jonathan Williams, UFCW 400; Graphic by visual journalist Sara Mirk, from "COMIC: Grocery Workers Are Essential, And Feeling The Strain"
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