For more than a month, supermarket employees have stood on the front lines of the coronavirus pandemic, being exposed to hundreds of customers during each shift. It was only a matter of time until some of them contracted COVID-19 themselves.
Yet some stores have been more forthcoming in their public communication and alerting customers when a worker gets sick.
ShopRite has erred on the side of transparency in recent weeks, with stores across the state posting on their Facebook pages when an employee has tested positive. As of Tuesday, 36 ShopRite locations had employees test positive, while five additional stores had employees with symptoms.
“We’ve always believed in the consumer’s right to know, and have a commitment to being transparent with our consumers. And because of the nature of [coronavirus], we certainly think that our consumers would want to know, and it’s important to give them that information,” Karen Meleta, the vice president of consumer and corporate communications at Wakefern Food Corp., which owns ShopRite, told NJ Advance Media Wednesday.
In the coming days, ShopRite will implement temperature monitoring and masks for staff members, Meleta added, and stores will be limiting capacity to 30 percent, even lower than the 50 percent mandated by Gov. Phil Murphy on Wednesday.
ShopRite’s openness to provide information to the public is in stark contrast to some other grocery chains that have chosen not to reveal which stores have experienced ill employees, citing that releasing such information is not required by law. But doesn’t the public have a right to know considering this is an unprecedented health crisis?
Ashley Conway, a workplace health and safety expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, praised ShopRite for being above board, but she stopped short of condemning companies that are being less transparent. The key component here is disclosing information to the public information on a need-to-know basis, Conway says, and so little is known about coronavirus and who is carrying it that the situation becomes tricky.
“Just because (only one person) is sick doesn’t mean that half your store, half your staff isn’t infected,” Conway said. “In light of that, I think it is kind of a moot point.”
Elsewhere in the state, Parsippany-based Kings Food Markets says when a staff member at one of its 23 locations falls ill, the loyalty club members at that specific store are notified via email. The correspondence comes from CEO Judy Spires, alerting shoppers about the case and detailing the protocol for disinfecting the store.
“I am proud to say I’ve been able to get the email out to the local stores the day that we’re notified [about the cases],” Kings spokesperson Kimberly Yorio said. “Our customers have really appreciated it, they call and thank us for the transparency.”
Meanwhile Stop and Shop, which has 62 locations in New Jersey and earned praise for its unionized workers getting raises and more paid sick leave is not making its “small number” of positive cases public because “the Board of Health is not requiring customer notifications.”
“All confirmed positive cases have been disclosed to the local health authorities in those respective towns,” Stop and Shop spokesperson Stefanie Shuman said. “... We also conduct an extensive deep cleaning of those stores and every surface possible in strict accordance with guidelines from the CDC and state and local public health officials.”
Informing local health departments but not the public is also the company line for Wegmans and Acme.
“The personal health information of all Wegmans employees is private, and as such we are not privy to, or at liberty to share, individual details," Wegmans spokesperson Tracy Van Auker said.
Acme also confirmed some staff members had tested positive.
“When an associate at one of our stores is confirmed to have COVID-19, a nurse from our Crisis Response Center contacts the associate to ensure they are seeking appropriate medical care and to initiate a close contacts investigation," Acme said in a statement. "Following that investigation, we may recommend that additional members of the store team self-quarantine. We also report the confirmed diagnosis to the local health department.”
When asked why they haven’t altered their protocols to further inform the public during the pandemic, the spokespersons for Wegmans and Acme did not respond.
Costco would only confirm that United States staff members had tested positive and they were “communicating relevant information to our employees.” Other grocery store chains such as Weis, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Target and Walmart did not respond to inquiries.
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