COVID spike worries grocery store workers

Late March brought something neither Rich Raccio nor Pat Valdez saw in their decades of working in supermarkets — a consumer rush on almost everything.

“All hell broke loose,” said Valdez, a 45-year veteran employee of Stop & Shop on New Haven’s Whalley Avenue. “People were buying everything. No one knew what to expect.”

“It was like Hurricane Irene, Super Storm Sandy and the Blizzard of ‘78 all rolled into one,” added Raccio, who stocks shelves with his younger brother, Phil, in the East Haven Stop & Shop. “Things are a bit calmer now.”

Still, he said, “Whenever we get a pallet of paper towels or toilet paper, it’s gone in no time. Any of the disinfectant wipes, Lysol sprays or Pine Sol seem to fly off the shelves,” said Raccio, who has spent 35 years working in supermarkets. “Even with the store limits, they are gone in no time.”

With COVID-19 positive cases rising as cold weather sets in and more people appear to be suffering from pandemic fatigue, workers on the front line are finding themselves facing a reprise of March, April and May.

Stores of necessities are dwindling. People are forgetting to social distance or getting careless with sanitizing or mask wearing. Families are back shopping together. Some shoppers are hoarding.

“As the infection rate heightens, I’m hearing more and more concerns from union members,” said Jorge Cabrera, the incoming State Senator from the 17th district which includes Ansonia,

Beacon Falls, Bethany, Derby, Hamden, Naugatuck and Woodbridge.

Cabrera is a business representative and union organizer for Local 919 United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. His local and their sister Local 371 represent some 14,000 Stop & Shop employees.

As of Friday, Local 371 — which represents mostly butchers, deli and seafood clerks — recorded 110 COVID-19 related illnesses among its members from March through Oct. 27 in its Stop & Shop stores in Connecticut and western Massachusetts. Since Oct. 27, when COVID-19 positive cases were rising statewide, they’ve recorded another 48.

Numbers for Local 919 members were not immediately available.

While the stores are undergoing regular cleaning and deeper cleanings in departments where there has been a COVID-19 positive test, Cabrera said he is not so sure carriages and shopping baskets are being cleaned after every use.

“That’s a concern,” he said.

Keri Hoehne, the executive vice president of Local 371, said another concern is the self-service checkout areas in the grocery stores.

“They are so close together that shoppers are not six feet apart,” she said. “Then when a customer asks for help, the workers have to come into what I call a COVID corral.”

Another concern of her members are the Instacart people who shop for customers.

“They are under a lot of stress, too,” said Hoehne. “Sometimes when they can’t find an item, they’ll get up close to one of our union members asking for help.”

Stop & Shop added a hazard pay increase to paychecks from April to August, workers said. The union believes its members are entitled once again to hazard pay.

“These people have been on the front line serving the public since March,” said Cabrera. “They’re wearing face masks and shields every day. They’re dealing with people coming in by the thousands. So their (the supermarket workers’) anxiety levels are once again high.”

The stress isn’t left at the door when a worker goes home, the union reps said. Workers are dealing with the impact of distance learning, school closures and childcare facilities either shutting down or reducing the number of clients.

“All this is having an impact on their mental health,” Cabrera said.

“With the infection rate passing 7 percent, hazard pay now is more warranted,” Cabrera said.

With the virus again spiking, Raccio said he sees his hours go up and his once-filled shelves emptied by concerned shoppers.

“Shoppers start getting upset when we don’t have the items they are looking for,” said Raccio, who lives in East Haven. “It’s not our fault or the company’s fault. The products are just not available. The warehouses are empty.”

Supermarket workers have told Hearst Connecticut Media that some shoppers become so irate that they’ll follow them into the back room demanding to know where the store allegedly is hiding popular items and accusing them of price gouging.