They restock store shelves, prepare food, work cash registers and make sure New Jerseyans are able to buy what they need.
Many retail employees are working this holiday season without hazard pay as the coronavirus spikes again and as some of their employers are seeing substantial growth, recent report shows.
Amazon, for example, which will have 40,000 employees in New Jersey by the end of the year, ended a $2 per hour pay bonus in June. The company never said it was “hazard pay,” but instead called it “peak-style increases” for workers who helped the company keep up with unexpected demand when the pandemic began. It recently said no new increases were planned, according to published reports.
The company reported last month that its quarterly profit had increased nearly 200 percent.
Big retail companies are earning windfall profits while worker pay has barely budged, said Molly Kinder, a fellow at the Brookings Institute who released a report on how retail companies are compensating workers during the pandemic.
“In total, the 13 companies we studied earned an extra $16.9 billion in profit so far this year compared to last year, a stunning 39%, increase, while stock prices are up an average of 33%,” Kinder said. “Several companies have started spending hundreds of millions of dollars buying back their stock, even after ending hazard pay for their workers.”
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Kinder said nearly all of the companies she reviewed ended hazard pay for frontline retail workers by June, an average of more than 130 days ago.
“Because most companies ended hazard pay to workers months ago, the average pay bump for frontline workers at these companies was just a little over a dollar an hour since the start of the pandemic, despite record profits,” she said. “This is not only disheartening to workers, who are risking their lives, but it makes a very big difference to the lowest wage workers.”
With the virus surging, workers say they deserve more.
Jennifer Daquino, a ShopRite grocery worker in Lacey Township, said through a union spokesman that she and her coworkers have been on the front lines for months.
ShopRite began paying employees an extra $2 per hour in hazard pay on March 22. It was reduced to $1 per hour on July 5, and ended completely on Aug 2. While its union negotiated back pay of $1 per hour for a couple of summer weeks, there is no current plan for more hazard pay as the pandemic rages through the state.
“We didn’t sign up to be first responders,” Daquini said, noting that she is still happy to serve her customers.
The risk is real.
At least 23 frontline workers — those who have to see customers in person including grocery store and others employed by essential businesses that have remained open during the pandemic.— have died of COVID-19 and at least 1,500 have been infected or exposed in New Jersey since the pandemic began, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents 1.3 million food and retail workers nationwide.
There are some 50 million frontline workers across the nation who are in essential jobs that must be done in person, according to Brookings.
Walmart, which announced a boost in quarterly sales last month, hasn’t instituted hazard pay through increased hourly wages for employees, but it has paid some cash bonuses.
Home Depot, which was paying weekly bonuses when the pandemic started, said last week it would stop the bonuses but increase wages.
But at least one Home Depot worker who asked to remain anonymous out of fear for his job said the company’s new pay structure is really a pay loss.
He said the company used to give weekly bonuses of $100 per week for full-timers and $50 for part-timers who worked at least 16 hours. While he will get a $1 per hour pay raise, that’s only an extra $40 per week for full-timers — smaller than the $100 per week hazard pay bonus he used to receive. And, he said, he won’t be eligible for another raise until 2022.
Home Depot, which said it has provided more than $1.7 billion in expanded benefits to-date, reported higher-than-expected profits in the last quarter, with sales up 23% from the same period the year before.
Lowe’s said it provided special payments and bonuses to hourly workers in March, May, July, August, October and November. Each included $300 for full-time hourly associates and $150 for part-time hourly associates, a spokesperson said. Additionally, in April, “front-line associates” received a temporary $2 per hour wage increase. There is no higher hourly wage being paid in December as of now.
The company’s same-store sales rose more than 30% in the third quarter as its online sales doubled, but it failed to meet Wall Street expectations in part because of higher labor costs.
The Brookings report said only four large retail companies — Costco, Amazon, Target and Best Buy — offer workers starting wages of $15 per hour. Typical grocery cashiers earn about $10 per hour, it said, highlighting the need for higher wages.
“At a time of skyrocketing inequality, the richest retail companies in America can, and should, do far more. When working could mean dying, frontline workers deserve hazard pay for the duration of the pandemic and a permanent raise to a living wage,” Kinder said.
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Karin Price Mueller may be reached at KPriceMueller@NJAdvanceMedia.com.
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Few N.J. retail workers getting hazard pay as COVID-19 spikes during holiday shopping season, report shows - NJ.com
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