Amidst news that grocery store workers are starting to suffer losses comes just what you’d expect – a reluctance to work in an environment where you can die:
Industry experts say the rise of worker infections and deaths will likely have a ripple effect on grocers’ ability to retain and add new workers at a time when they’re looking to rapidly hire thousands of temporary employees. Walmart, the nation’s largest grocer, is hiring 150,000 workers, while Kroger is adding more than 10,000. Many are offering an extra $2 an hour and promising masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. But finding people willing to work on the front lines for little more than the minimum wage could be an increasingly tough sell, according to supermarket analyst Phil Lempert.
“One of the biggest mistakes supermarkets made early on was not allowing employees to wear masks and gloves the way they wanted to,” he said. “They’re starting to become proactive now, but it’s still going to be much tougher to hire hundreds of thousands of new workers. We’re going to start seeing people say, ‘I’ll just stay unemployed instead of risking my life for a temporary job.’ “ [WaPo]
It’s one thing to think of it as a low-skill job, but when the danger index rises from fairly low to suddenly mid-range – or more – people are going to demand higher wages, and that demand will linger even after COVID-19 has been controlled, because, despite what some people think, it won’t be forgotten for at least a generation, if not more. Between the many premature deaths, the quarantines, and the outrage that some people think they are exceptions to the quarantine rule, it’s going to leave a mark in the minds of most.
And as long as we remain overpopulated, we’re more likely to see more such pandemics & plagues, reinforcing the lesson. While I don’t see how the risk farmers face every day as part of their vocations will be increased by COVID-19 and most hypothetical plagues, the requirements of the grocery store do increase the danger.
If you note in a year or two that food prices remain elevated, compared to the year prior to COVID-19, I think you can blame it on the pandemic, and how it was compounded by the retailers who were slow to realize that corporate profits come second to their workers lives – or they can do their own damn bagging at their supermarkets.
