
When she's not at work, Fred Meyer employee Melody Gramley loves spending time with her young grandson. But Gramley, who works at a store in Salem, has been unable to see him for two weeks.
That's because her grandson was born with a weakened immune system, making him particularly susceptible to COVID-19. Gramley fears the lax safety precautions at her workplace could make her a carrier for the virus. She's not willing to risk accidentally transmitting the disease to her grandson.
âIf you were to go into Fred Meyer at any point, you would see that a lot of the customers have no regard for the six-foot [social distancing] rule,â Gramley told the Mercury. âA lot of them donât really care.â
While many Oregonians have the luxury of working from home, or have been laid off because they worked at non-essential businesses that closed under Gov. Kate Brownâs stay-at-home order, grocery workers continue to show up for work. Faced with crowded stores, questionable safety conditions, and protective gear shortages, some of these workers are demanding more from their companies, and from the state government.
Gramley is also an officer with United Food and Grocery Workers Local 555, which represents Fred Meyer and Safeway workers in Oregon. On a press conference call with local labor leaders and Brown yesterday, Gramley called for grocery store workers to be prioritized for COVID-19 testingâa still-limited resource in Oregon. She later told the Mercury that she sees this ask as a protective measure for both grocery workers and the public. One Portland Fred Meyer employee tested positive for COVID-19 earlier this month.
âWe have to go to work every day,â she said. âSeeing as some of the public does not adhere to the guidelines while weâre fighting through this pandemicâthe employees could end up as carriers, or end up actually getting sick from COVID.â
Gramley, who said she also has a compromised immune system, wears a cloth mask that a coworker gave her during each work shift. Cloth masks arenât as effective as the N95 medical masks that are in short supply nationwide, but itâs one of the few protections she has. Sheâs also expecting to see plexiglass barriers added to protect cash register workers soon.
Until recently, Gramleyâs job was to help customers sign up for Fred Meyer credit cards, but sheâs been reassigned to fill curbside pickup orders because of high demand. Every time she picks up items on a customerâs list, Gramley said she wonders, âHow many times over have those products been touched by someone before us?â
âIf you think about all the people who touch your foodâare you paying them enough to think about all the safety practices that should be going into the food theyâre preparing for you?â â Portland Whole Foods worker
Fred Meyer workers aren't the only ones worrying about packed stores and unhealthy conditions. Employees at Zupanâs, a small gourmet grocery chain in Portland, started an online petition last week calling for stricter social distancing rules in the stores. Their demands include a capacity cap of 35 customers at a time, $2 per hour hazard pay wage raises, and a fully enforced six-foot-distance rule for customers and employees. A capacity cap is already in place at New Seasons Markets, and employees at New Seasons, Whole Foods and Market of Choice have received temporary increased wages.
âTheyâre small stores to begin with, so the employees are working within close quarters of each other,â said one Zupanâs employee, who asked to be kept anonymous so they wouldnât be disciplined at work. âThey arenât even limiting the number of people in the store, or the six-foot distance, or any of that, and they definitely arenât giving hazard pay.â
In a response to their demands, owner Mark Zupan sent an email telling employees they would be receiving store gift cards in place of hazard pay, and that the stores would be upping their sanitation practices and using new work schedules to help employees maintain a proper distance between each other.
âOur priority is, and always will be, the health and safety of you our associates and our customers,â Zupan wrote. âWe are working hard to ensure that you have the tools needed to do your job safely and effectively.â
Zupanâs employees say the new measure are a good start, but donât go far enough.

Whole Foods workers in Portland and across the country also have demands for their owners. Many workers at the grocery chain are participating in a strike on Tuesday, following a Monday strike at Amazon, Whole Foods' parent company. Whole Foods recently put tighter capacity limits on stores, and gave workers $2 an hour raises through April. But striking workers also want paid leave for employees quarantining during the coronavirus pandemic, free COVID-19 testing for all workers, and hazard pay that is double their current wages.
The Mercury spoke with one Whole Foods worker who also asked to be kept anonymous. They said they already have the day off on Tuesday, but would be staying home as part of the strike even if they were on the schedule. They said that they hope the COVID-19 crisis will prompt people to think about how little grocery workers are paid, despite being essential workers during the pandemic. The employee said they earn $15.50 an hour without hazard pay, and pointed out that thatâs already relatively high for entry-level grocery workers.
âIf you think about all the people who touch your foodâare you paying them enough to think about all the safety practices that should be going into the food theyâre preparing for you?â they said.
The Whole Foods worker said that before their store adopted a new 40-person limit, it was packed with people franticly purchasing toilet paper, pasta, and canned goods.
âIt feels a little bit like a holiday, when everyoneâs in the storeâexcept really not fun,â they said. âSome people are really nice, saying âThank you for being here.â And then there are so many people who are very unfriendly⌠They donât want to wait in a line, theyâre mad weâre out of things.â
They said they see working at a grocery store as âa really double-edged sword right now.â
âOn the one hand, it is nice it has job security, [because] a ton of different people I know are unemployed right now,â they said. âAnd then on the other hand, it is really scary to have to go into work every day when you read the news that says you should stay inside, and itâs not just older people who are being hospitalized. Itâs very scary.â