Summary

The COVID-19 pandemic is exposing and deepening systemic inequalities in global economies

Anna Triponel

June 22, 2020

Aid and development charity Oxfam analyzed the employment policies of five U.S. grocery chains (Albertson’s/Safeway, Costco, Kroger, Walmart and Whole Foods/Amazon) to assess how well they have protected their workers during the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

  • Oxfam focuses on the supermarkets’ approach to five areas in particular: (1) paid sick leave, (2) provision of protective gear, (3) hazard pay, (4) engagement with trade unions and (5) dependent care.
  • Oxfam found that, despite companies making improvements in some of their policies, there are still significant gaps in protections for frontline workers: “All supermarkets stepped up their policies on sick leave, hazard pay, and protective measures, but these steps have largely been insufficient. Of the companies we examined, Walmart, Costco, and Whole Foods/Amazon are falling especially short on directly engaging with their workers, an essential component to ensuring their safety.”
  • The report states that, as more U.S. states loosen pandemic-related restrictions and begin re-opening stores, an estimated 100 supermarket workers have died as a result of the pandemic and that approximately 5,500 have tested positive for the virus. Nonetheless, “some companies are seeking to roll back key policies on hazard pay at a time when their essential workers need it most.”
  • Oxfam reports that women employees and black employees are most at risk of experiencing the harmful impacts of companies’ policy decisions and calls on corporate leaders to take issues like gender, race, poverty and systemic racism and inequality into account when creating policies to protect workers and customers.
  • In light of its findings, Oxfam urges supermarket companies to refocus their efforts and resources on protecting employees and customers and to “adopt a fundamentally new worker-focused corporate strategy that ensures workers can exercise their voice and influence decisions that impact and protect their lives, along with the health of their customer.” Oxfam is coordinating a consumer campaign collecting signatures to call on the US supermarket sector “to protect its workforce and reduce human rights risks.”
“The coronavirus pandemic has exposed many ugly truths about our country’s systemic inequalities and how our economic systems are failing the people most at risk. Nowhere is that more visible than the grocery industry. … The more than three million mostly low-wage workers tasked with ensuring there’s food on our tables are living paycheck to paycheck, often forced to choose between minimizing risks to their health and making enough money to get by.”                        

Oxfam, Exposed: How US supermarkets are failing their workers in a global pandemic (24 June 2020)

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