Grocery Store Workers Grow Increasingly Fearful In Workplace That ‘Feels Like A War Zone’
The nation's 3 million grocery store workers have been on the front lines with little to protect themselves. “They’ve started telling people, ‘Go to the grocery store as little as possible.’ And yet I’m going there every day," said Doug Preszler, a grocery store worker in Iowa. At least 41 workers have died. More news on the food supply reports on Smith shutting its pork plants, Amazon's putting new shoppers on wait lists, and P&G's efforts to make toilet paper in town that's been hit hard.
The Washington Post:
As More Grocery Workers Die, Many Supermarket Employees Fear Showing Up During Pandemic
Doug Preszler wasn’t thinking about risk when he took a cashier job at a regional supermarket in eastern Iowa. But five months in, he has found himself at the forefront of a global crisis with little training or protection — save for the pocket-size bottle of hand sanitizer and Ziploc full of disposable gloves he brings from home each day. The 51-year-old has told himself not to live in fear yet concedes he increasingly is. Even the most routine tasks are fraught: Accepting bills and giving change scare him the most, Preszler says. And he has run through so much hand sanitizer that his skin is cracking. (Bhattarai, 4/12)
Reuters:
Smithfield Shutting U.S. Pork Plant Indefinitely, Warns Of Meat Shortages During Pandemic
Smithfield Foods, the world’s biggest pork processor, said on Sunday it will shut a U.S. plant indefinitely due to a rash of coronavirus cases among employees and warned the country was moving “perilously close to the edge” in supplies for grocers. Slaughterhouse shutdowns are disrupting the U.S. food supply chain, crimping availability of meat at retail stores and leaving farmers without outlets for their livestock. (Polansek, 4/12)
The Wall Street Journal:
Smithfield CEO Warns Of Risks To Pork Supply
South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem on Saturday called on Smithfield to keep the plant closed after linking it to 238 cases of the new coronavirus, representing more than half of all cases in the county. Smithfield’s plant and other meatpacking facilities around the country have emerged as hot spots for Covid-19, the disease caused by the virus, with unions and advocacy groups warning that close quarters for workers on processing lines raise the risk of infection. Ms. Noem, a Republican, acknowledged Smithfield’s efforts to mitigate the spread of the virus among its plant employees but wrote in a letter to Smithfield that it could do more. (Bunge, 4/12)
Reuters:
Amazon Stops Accepting New Online Grocery Customers Amid Surging Demand
Amazon will begin to put new grocery delivery customers on a wait list and curtail shopping hours at some Whole Foods stores to prioritize orders from existing customers buying food online during the coronavirus outbreak, the company said on Sunday. (Hu, 4/13)
The Wall Street Journal:
P&G Toilet Paper Factory Keeps Delivering As Coronavirus Strikes Its Town
Almost every day an employee at Procter & Gamble Co. PG -0.38% ’s plant in Albany, Ga., a town with one of the nation’s highest rates of coronavirus, learns that someone close has become seriously ill or died of Covid-19. There is little time for consolation between co-workers. They are all racing to churn out one of the most in-demand products in America: toilet paper. (Terlep, 4/12)
