March 26, 2020

Grocery Clerks Are Now Emergency Personnel in Several States. California’s Workers Want In.

They’re calling for additional benefits like free child care and sanitation protections.

A stock clerk wearing gloves refills empty shelves at Whole Foods in Santa Barbara, California.Amy Katz/ZUMA

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While more than half the country’s population is now under shelter-in-place orders to fight the spread of the coronavirus, grocery and pharmacy workers are still reporting for work as essential employees. As I previously reported, Minnesota and Vermont have classified grocery workers as emergency personnel, which allows them access to free child care. Michigan is also providing child care for emergency workers, including grocery clerks. Now grocery workers are demanding that California do the same.

The California petition, launched by the United Food and Commercial Workers union, calls for Gov. Gavin Newsom to take executive action to protect grocery and pharmacy workers. The emergency protections workers are calling for include paid child care, 14 additional sick days for workers affected by COVID-19, sanitation protections like the right to wash hands every 30 minutes, and customer crowd control. A spokesperson for the California Department of Public Health wrote in an email that the department would update Mother Jones if the state issues additional guidance for these workers.

Some grocery chains have implemented new protections for workers: Kroger and Walmart, for example, are adding plexiglass partitions to protect cashiers from customer germs, and some grocery and retail outlets have also given their workers temporary raises and emergency paid sick leave. But the measures have not been consistent across the industry.

John Grant, the president of Los Angeles-based UFCW 770, said the push for the emergency personnel designation was part of a national effort “to gain a modicum of protection for those clerks who are selflessly working to hold our communities together.”

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This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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