Grocery chain offers counseling to workers
Kroger replaced hourly hazard pay raises with a one-time payment
After a Kroger grocery store employee in Murfreesboro died after testing positive for COVID-19, the nation’s largest grocery chain said Tuesday it would make grief counselors available to their former coworkers.
On the same day, Kroger defended its decision to end hazard pay for frontline employees — while filing a shareholder statement which shows a combined $37 million paid to six executives in salaries, cash bonuses, stock awards, stock options and other compensation, in 2019.
For that year, Kroger announced a $2.3 billion profit. And current signs show the Cincinnati-based company’s fortunes may climb higher.
Kroger sales increased by 30%, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported in March — when grocery prices rose by an average 2.6%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Memphis, workers at the center of Kroger operations say there’s a human cost of continuing to keep the company’s stores supplied during the pandemic.
Amid Kroger’s pivot to end Hero Pay as though conditions have returned to normal, they say their fear of COVID-19 exposure has grown, with the relaunch of a quota system in which workers can
be terminated if they meet production standards less than 95% of the time.
Workers are allotted a specific amount of time to gather cases of groceries from across the warehouse. But those production times were developed before the pandemic, according to the workers' Teamsters representative Barry Brown.
The production quotas don't allow extra time needed for social distancing, Brown said, and the warehouse now has more workers to respond to increased demand.
“On a normal day, it was 40-50 people on the floor picking cases. Now you've got 70-90 people on the floor,” Brown said. Around 240,000 cases move through the warehouse, which supplies more than 100 stores across the Mid-south every day, he added.
For warehouse worker Aaron Washington, 53, the stress takes a toll — one he insists should translate to continued hazard pay.
“It's every day I worry about being exposed,” said Washington, a 17-year veteran.
“We see our CEO is getting a 21% pay raise while the average, everyday worker has to actually fight and ask and beg for $2,” Washington said of the additional hourly “Hero Pay” Kroger will cease paying May 16.
After pressure from unions to continue hazard pay, Kroger announced Friday, it would provide a one-time bonus payment of $400 for full-time workers and $200 for part-time workers as a thank you for “being instrumental in feeding America.”
Frontline workers shouldn't have had to beg, Washington said. “These are the people that are taking the risk. They're the ones who have to get out and make it happen. We deserve a little extra credit,” he said.
‘We're committed to continued support'
As of Friday, fewer than 10 Kroger employees nationally have died due to the coronavirus, according to the company's national spokesperson Kristal Howard. The company said it does not know the official cause of death of the Kroger worker in Murfreesboro and that there have been no fatal cases in the separate Delta Division, which is headquartered in Memphis.
Multiple spokespeople said the company has had a low COVID-19 case rate. In Memphis, spokesperson Teresa Dickerson did not address a request to define “low.”
Dickerson attributed price increases to supplier costs and record demand and said Kroger is following local and state regulations. She also said Kroger is seeking to keep costs steady, offering coupons and accepting SNAP payments.
Regarding Kroger's decision to end Hero Pay, the company highlighted 100,000 new hires and a $700 million investment in associate rewards, safety precautions and community testing it has made, in a statement that promised ongoing listening and responsiveness to workers' needs.
“We are committed to the continued support of our associates' safety and mental well-being, and we'll continue our ongoing discussions on these critical aspects with the UFCW,” the statement reads, referring to the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents in-store employees.
Dickerson said discussions will continue with warehouse worker representatives as well, though she declined to comment as to when the company's production quotas were defined and if they will be updated.
A choice between discipline and social distance
More than 40 employees have received written warnings for not meeting production times, and one worker has been suspended for three days, according to the Teamsters.
Many of them have sought out Maurice Wiggins, a 30-year-old forklift driver and union steward who said he's in close proximity to 80-90 people inside the warehouse every shift. Workers are currently on mandatory six-day weeks.
A father of two, Wiggins was among workers who demanded hazard pay from Kroger in late March after learning an employee tested positive in the Memphis warehouse.
“I'm trying to stay healthy out here,” he said of social distancing. “But I can't if I'm going to lose my job,” he said of the quotas. “So now I'm putting my life in danger to keep my job, to keep food on the table for my family.”
Wiggins has been separated from his family since earlier this year when his wife, who is in the Air Force, was stationed in California. Every little bit of extra pay helps to sustain them and fund visits, he said.
During his last trip to California, Wiggins said he was struck by the difference in social distancing practices outside versus inside the warehouse.
“When I went to see my family, I'm in the airport and it's completely empty. Everybody got on masks, some things not even open. Certain people still ain't working. You walk out the door, ain't nobody on the streets,” Wiggins said.
“They acting like everything back to normal,” Wiggins said of Kroger's decision to end hazard pay and enforce quotas. “It's like living in two different worlds,” he said.
‘No one knows how long this will last'
Those sentiments were echoed by leaders of multiple UFCW locals, in Kentucky, Ohio, Michigan and Indiana in a letter sent to Kroger CEO Rodney Mcmullen that demanded the continuation of hazard pay.
“Statements by Kroger about ‘starting the path to recovery' and ‘beginning to see a return to normal' do not reflect the reality of the increasing number of cases and deaths across the country. No one knows how long this will last... There is no path to recovery from a virus that has no cure,” the letter reads.
Dan Pedersen is the president of UFCW local 876 in Michigan, where four Kroger workers in the Detroit area have died as of April 11. Pedersen said UFCW has been negotiating with Kroger on the possible extension of Hero Pay for “at least while the crisis is still amongst us.”
He said hazard pay is crucial in providing some comfort given the risk workers face. “They're putting themselves at risk, potentially their families, with what they bring home,” Pedersen said.
A problem bigger than Kroger
Aaron Washington, the veteran Memphis warehouse worker, said he gives Kroger credit for some aspects of its response to the pandemic.
“They stepped up pretty good as far as sanitation and hygienic supplies or PPE,” Washington said of Kroger's consistency in sanitizing the facility and providing workers with masks and gloves.
But while he felt fortunate just to have a job in the early days of the pandemic, Washington said that as the economic outlook has become more dire, he doesn't think that just having a job is enough to not worry about fair pay.
Washington said his mother and sister have been laid off from jobs in hospitality and education, and his adult children don't have work either. “Just having an opportunity to go to work every day, that doesn't mean my family is doing better now,” he said.
The problem is bigger than Kroger, he said, and Washington has begun putting his hopes in potential legislative solutions that might provide hazard pay instead.
“This is a systematic problem,” Washington said, “where the poorer, the frontline, the minorities are always the first to have to go to work, we're the first to get fired and we have to beg for just a livable wage.”
Sarah Macaraeg is an award-winning journalist who writes investigations, features and the occasional news story for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at sarah.macar aeg@commercialappeal.com, 901-5292889 or on Twitter @seramak.