Working retail in the pandemic: Rumors flourish amid sketchy info
Deemed an essential business, the Dadeland Station Target on South Dixie Highway has been fully operational since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. The store required both customers and employees to wear masks and keep a social distance.
That didn’t prevent five employees from testing positive for the virus last month, according to internal Target communications reviewed by the Miami Herald. Shoppers who may have interacted with the employees have not been notified. “Our store has been very hush-hush,” said one full-time employee.
“They don’t want us to talk about coronavirus,” said another.
Three employees talked to the Miami Herald, all anonymously to avoid possible reprisals, offering a peek into the realities of working in a major box store in a time of pandemic.
When a new case is confirmed, employees are notified via text message, told the date the person was last in the store, and instructed to contact human resources if they have questions. The texts do not reveal the employee’s identity and often come one to two weeks after their last shift.
In time, rumors flourished. The Miami Herald received a tip on its tip line that 15 employees had tested positive at the store. That’s apparently not accurate.
“We’ve communicated directly with these team members, who went into quarantine and are following all health department guidelines,” Target said in a statement. “We’re paying these team members while they’re on leave and our thoughts are with them during this challenging time. After learning about positive cases, we
Working in a retail outlet, such as the Dadeland Station Target, during the coronavirus likely means getting little information when one of your co-workers tests positive.
also work quickly to deep clean and sanitize the store, which is the recommendation of public health experts.”
Target did not close its doors when the county and the state went on lockdown, so it offers paid time off for those who test positive for coronavirus, are pregnant or at least 65 years old. Others are left with few options: show up, take unpaid time off or quit with a slim chance at unemployment benefits.
The chain provided an additional $2 an hour in hazard pay to its normal $13-an-hour wage, but that ended a month ago, shortly before the dramatic spike in infections and deaths made working at a South Florida store even more dangerous.
Instead, Target now pays the $15 as its minimum wage, which it had been planning to do this year since September 2017, and is paying employees a $200 bonus this month. “It did feel kind of cheap,” an employee said. “They were just kind of advancing, by like a month or two the pay that they were already going to give us.”
Given the customerfacing nature of the retail industry, best preventive practices have been difficult for retailers and their workers to navigate. And the pandemic has not only endangered workers, it has also complicated their rights.
For one Dadeland Station Target employee, the frustrating part is not knowing exactly who has tested positive, especially since the employees are not actually able to stay six feet apart due to their job responsibilities and the size of their break room.
“If it were me,” she said about her coworkers who tested positive, “I would tell everyone.”
But for retailers, there’s a thin line between being transparent for safety reasons and violating the privacy rights of their employees. “While being transparent, we’re also careful to keep team member privacy from being compromised with the information we share,” said a Target spokesperson in an email to the Miami Herald.
Though workers can demand to know when someone tests positive, they cannot demand their name, said Alison Smith, an employment lawyer and partner at the law firm Kelley Kronenberg. “We’re still figuring out the laws related to COVID, but there are laws right now that protect people’s privacy.”
Smith has been advising clients to share as much information as legally possible with their employees regarding coronavirus cases because, if not, they could face lawsuits from employees who contract coronavirus while at work.
But even a lawsuit would be difficult. In order to sue their employer and win, an employee would have to prove that their exposure to the virus was limited to the workplace, which would require knowing everyone’s — customers’ and coworkers’ — medical history. It would be a massive contact-tracing feat.
So what can employees do? The strongest avenue they have is to file a complaint to their local government, not the Occupational Health and Safety Administration, Smith said. OSHA, the federal agency that would usually handle complaints related to workplace health and safety, has been criticized for being absent during the pandemic, as the Herald previously reported.
Under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ coronavirus response, counties and cities have the power to create their own rules for coronavirus that retailers have to follow. Those rules are similar to guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for reducing transmission among employees and maintaining a healthy workplace, but unlike CDC guidelines, they have an enforcement component.
In Miami-Dade County, where the Dadeland Target Store is located, retailers were provided a list of 47 guidelines to follow in order to remain open. Of the 47, only 11 are mandatory. Measures like “train all employees on COVID-19 to prevent the spread, and to identify vulnerable individuals,” and “require frequent hand washing and use of hand sanitizer” are optional. As of July 28, the Miami-Dade Police Department had issued 4,450 warnings, 180 citations for $500, and had temporarily closed 40 businesses for not following county guidelines.
Broward County has opted to publicize the status of all complaints against businesses on a digital complaint tracker. Retailers have received warnings for violations like not following sanitation requirements and not requiring customers or employees to wear masks. As of July 29, the county had issued 1,085 warnings and 124 citations. Fines vary depending on the city, but could go up to $15,000.
In Monroe County, 106 complaints had been filed against businesses, as of July 27. So far, 11 of those businesses have been found to be noncompliant with coronavirus ordinances.
For retailers that have stores in multiple locations, they must adapt to various ordinances.
“Florida retail stores are working extremely hard to keep consumers safe and offer alternatives for consumers to order, pick up or shop in-store for what they need during this difficult time,” said Scott Shalley, president and CEO of the Florida Retail Federation, in an email to the Miami Herald. “Navigating the patchwork of restrictions and regulations from city to city and county to county is an added stress.”
Still, Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, said it is the workplace’s responsibility to ensure safe working conditions for employees. The union has been fighting for stronger coronavirus protections for its members. At Macy’s, it demanded that customers, not just employees, wear masks.
“What people need to do to protect themselves is to get a collective voice for a union or else their employer has no reason to listen to them,” Appelbaum said, noting Target’s past resistance to a unionized workforce. The Dadeland Station Target employees are not union members.