Grocery Chains Struggling
COVID Transparency - Employee Privacy & Safety

'On the front lines of the pandemic, grocery workers are in the dark about virus risks'
Washington Post Investigative Effort Uncovers The 'Privacy Issues'
Despite the pandemic, grocery stores generally are not required to publicly disclose coronavirus cases involving employees or report them to local health departments. As states now move to reopen, many grocers are being criticized by health officials, lawmakers and store employees for not being more open with the public and their own workers about outbreaks within their stores.

The Washington Post interviewed about 40 current and former employees at more than 30 supermarkets who alleged that the companies had not disclosed cases of infected or dead workers, retaliated against employees who raised safety concerns, and used faulty equipment to implement coronavirus mitigation measures.

The $800 billion grocery industry ­— dominated by a handful of major players, including Walmart, Kroger and Albertsons — employs more than 3 million people in what are typically low-paying positions with little job security.

At least 100 grocery workers nationwide have died of complications from the virus since late March, and at least 5,500 others have tested positive, according to a Post review of data from the nation’s largest grocery workers union, other workers’ rights coalitions and media reports.

Many local health officials told The Post they have been left in the dark as clusters of cases have emerged in supermarkets coast to coast.

Regardless of the severity of the issues retailers are severely limited in what they can and can not share or say. Being such an historical and unprecedented event Congress needs to address the core issues and find a way to insulate the retailers that allows them to be totally transparent without jeopardizing the privacy or safety of the associates and liability of the company. Read More

“We really need to have better communication. There’s got to be something moving forward . . . that changes the current process,” said Karyn Clark, Worcester’s public health director. Clark said a nurse had to call the local Walmart several times before the company shared its internal list of infected employees.

In interviews, supermarket chains defended their efforts to protect workers and the public, saying they have required masks for employees, encouraged social distancing and rewarded workers with hazard pay and bonuses. Some grocers said they have collaborated with health departments across the country to help stop the spread of the coronavirus.

Supermarket chains said they are being transparent about outbreaks while protecting the privacy of affected workers, which is governed by a patchwork of laws and regulatory measures.

All of the grocers contacted by The Post — Walmart, Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods Market, Target, Kroger, BJ’s Wholesale Club and Lidl — declined to provide the number of workers who tested positive for the coronavirus or died of it. Combined, those employers account for roughly 11,300 stores and 2.4 million employees nationwide.

United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents 900,000 workers at major chains, including Kroger, Safeway and Giant, has called on the companies to be more forthcoming to protect workers and customers in an industry that has remained a lifeline for households after states shut down most nonessential businesses for the pandemic.

Over the past five weeks, the union said the number of its grocery workers who have been infected or exposed to the virus jumped from 1,557 to 10,453.

“While some companies are doing the right thing and keeping shoppers and employees informed, there are still some keeping consumers in the dark and trying to sweep this information under the rug,” union president Marc Perrone said.
 

No reporting requirements

Many grocery workers told The Post that despite social distancing measures, they often share break rooms, bathrooms and devices for clocking in and out of their shifts. One sick employee, public health experts said, can potentially expose hundreds of colleagues and shoppers each day.

Troubled by Walmart’s response in Quincy and Worcester, lawmakers sent a letter on May 7 to Doug McMillon, the company’s president and chief executive.

“Across the country, more than 20 Walmart employees have died from COVID-19, and employees have had to take the critical work of contact tracing into their own hands to try and remain safe,” the delegation, led by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wrote in the letter.

In a May 19 response to lawmakers Tuesday, Bruce C. Harris, a Walmart vice president of federal government affairs, wrote that managers are required to meet with associates to let them know about each positive case and that they are monitoring the number of employees taking leave.

“We are managing thousands of different, and sometimes conflicting, emergency orders and directives,” Mr. Harris wrote.

Asked about the directives to avoid speaking about cases, Kristal Howard, a Kroger spokeswoman, said the company’s guidance “is always to communicate with integrity — openly and transparently — while protecting the privacy of any affected associate.”

Employment attorneys pointed out that companies must balance protecting employee privacy with keeping workplaces safe.

“We’re dealing with overlapping laws, gaps in laws and differing guidance from different levels of government,” said Kirk Nahra, an attorney at the law firm WilmerHale who specializes in privacy, data and health-care issues. “Companies are not supposed to disclose your name, but can they tell other employees in the meat department that someone who worked there Tuesday tested positive? Sure.”

Industry experts said the pandemic has left some supermarket chains struggling with what information should be shared with regulators or the public about sick and exposed employees.

Grocery companies are facing unprecedented challenges when an employee falls ill or dies, according to Hilary Thesmar, chief food and product safety officer for the Food Marketing Institute, a trade group for grocery stores and wholesalers.

“Companies are having to weigh a lot of factors: When did the employee test positive? When were they last at work?” she said.

But Oscar Alleyne, chief of programs and services at the National Association of County and City Health Officials, said that retailers need to be more transparent with public health officials in order to protect these high-risk essential workers and the public.

New workplace safety guidance from OSHA that goes into effect Tuesday asks most industries to report coronavirus cases that meet certain criteria. But employment experts say the guidance is murky and allows employers to decide whether the cases are work-related.

In the absence of data, UFCW has compiled daily reports on infected employees from its local chapters. Employees at chains, including Walmart and Whole Foods, have started their own grassroots efforts to tally illnesses and deaths at their stores, using social media and published reports to confirm tips.

'Putting us all in danger'

Grocery chains have publicly touted face masks, social distancing requirements, rigorous cleaning and temperature checks as proof that they are keeping workers and customers as safe as possible.

Two grocery chains have used faulty or ineffective equipment, according to documents and interviews.

The Kroger-owned Quality Food Centers chain uses infrared sensors to count the number of shoppers in its stores as a way to limit customers and facilitate social distancing. But the technology routinely provided false tallies, according to internal company documents obtained by The Post.

“Once a person is inside for 30 minutes, the system assumes that individual is an associate and stops counting that person,” QFC President Chris Albi said in a Q&A with employees of the chain, which has 62 stores in Washington and Oregon.

A Kroger spokeswoman declined to answer specific questions about any problems with the system but said management regularly verifies the capacity limits within the store.

At BJ’s Wholesale Club in Baltimore, a manager said the thermometers were not calibrated properly and the temperature readings of employees consistently reported 96 or 97 degrees. The manager said a supervisor also brushed off concerns about the lack of social distancing by employees who examined customers’ receipts as they left the warehouse.

“It is appalling conduct and a policy that is putting us all in danger,” said the manager, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “I would quit in protest, but I worry that without me, it’s one more person in a leadership role who is not taking this seriously.”

Even when employees have reported feeling sick, some said that their managers have insisted that they continue to work because of staffing shortages. washingtonpost.com

Editor's Note: Great story and well worth the read - Extensive story on the grocery industry's lack of transparency and challenges it faces with hundreds of varying laws, ordinances, employee privacy and safety. Excellent investigative work on a tough subject that the retailers find themselves caught in the middle of.

Regardless of the severity of the issues retailers are severely limited in what they can and can not share or say. Being such an historical and unprecedented event Congress needs to address the core issues and find a way to insulate the retailers that allows them to be totally transparent without jeopardizing the privacy or safety of the associates and liability of the company.

It's easy pickens for educated journalists to conduct what they feel is an exhaustive investigation into a one-sided subject without giving any attention to or denying any knowledge of HIPPA, privacy protections, legal liability, data security. Just an array of limitations and restrictions that these same elected officials helped implement and stand watch over. Just my thoughts. -Gus Downing