South Sound grocery workers demand hazard pay with protests
About 40 South Sound grocery workers and their supporters donned yellow shirts and lined Sleater Kinney Road Southeast leading up to Fred Meyer in Lacey Thursday afternoon.
Picket signs and chants made their demands clear: “Hey, hey, what do we say? We deserve hazard pay,” went one chant.
The workers, who are represented by United Food and Commercial Workers Local 367, had a specific demand: That leadership of major grocery chains reinstate the hourly pay bump they introduced at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, then discontinued.
Tracey Lopez, communications director for UFCW Local 367, told The Olympian that major chains instituted hazard pay earlier this year and extended it a handful of times, but now have decided to end the practice while the pandemic continues.
Kroger, for instance, ended its extra $2 per hour of “hero pay” in May, then announced it would give workers one-time “thank you” bonuses after UFCW’s outcry. Among the companies Kroger owns are Fred Meyer and QFC.
The pandemic is not over and working on the frontlines is still a hazard, the workers say.
Among Thursday’s yellow-shirted crowd were Patricia Estes and Mike Solberg.
Estes works as a front-end supervisor at Fred Meyer in South Hill, in the Puyallup area — she serves as a cashier, at the customer-service desk, and the self-checkout. She’s on union leave right now, she said, to help out with efforts like this and what she called a “flood” of new members joining as stores amp up hiring.
In an interview with The Olympian, Estes recounted being spat on and customers throwing objects at her after learning returns weren’t being processed earlier in the pandemic. She’s worked in retail for most of her life, she said, and can deal with shoplifting, crowds, and other challenges. But this, she said, has been her hardest year yet.
“It’s like Black Friday every day,” she said.
She said the more intense cleaning efforts at most stores also have stopped.
Solberg, a bakery manager, told The Olympian that, at a small store like the Graham Safeway where he’s worked for over 32 years, it’s “almost impossible” to maintain 6 feet of distance from one another. Employees wear masks and there’s a regular cleaning schedule, he said, but stress levels are high for employees who don’t want to get themselves and their families sick.
Both Solberg and Estes described heightened anxiety for cashiers, specifically, who have to confront customers about limitations on how many products they can purchase due to shortages.
Still, most customers understand the new rules, Solberg said — and it makes his day when customers express their gratitude for his being there during the pandemic.
“If I can’t get it from my employer, at least I can get it from the customers that are essentially who I’m doing it for,” Solberg said. “That’s why I go to work every day: So that they can have food on their table and the items that they need on a daily basis that they wouldn’t be able to get otherwise.”
A similar demonstration also was planned for the Fred Meyer on Trosper Road Southwest in Tumwater Thursday, which was scheduled to include speakers and a banner hung over the overpass at Trosper and Interstate 5.
Nationwide, UFCW has 1.3 million members, according to the union. At least 26 actions like the ones in Lacey and Tumwater are planned as part of the national campaign.
According to a recent UFCW press release, the union confirmed last week there have been more than 100 grocery worker deaths and over 14,300 grocery workers infected or exposed to COVID-19.
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