Unsung and Underappreciated: Retail Workers in COVID-19
Retail workers are exhausted, anxious and barely make enough to scrape by to do society's thankless work.
Danielle Clapham, 19, worked at Stewart’s in Defreestville, a suburb of Rensselaer, for nine months. (Photo courtesy of Jared LaBrecque)
Ding.
The electronic buzzer sounds and Danielle Clapham glances up from the ice cream counter she’s scrubbing. A man in his early 40s steps into the Stewart’s shop in Defreestville and takes a right, disappearing into the narrow bread aisle at the front of the store.
The tension in the air is palpable. Clapham eyeballs the customer and gets a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.
He isn’t wearing a mask. The risk of confrontation rises and the 19-year-old part-time Stewart’s employee gets increasingly anxious as she makes her way to the cash register in preparation. It seems like the “NO MASK, NO SERVICE” sign taped to the front door didn’t convey its message very well.
The man browses the humming drink coolers, meticulously choosing his selection of sugary beverages for a few minutes. He finally makes up his mind, lumbering towards the counter with two 12-packs of Diet Coke and a two-liter lemonade bottle tangled in his arms.
Clapham reaches underneath the counter. She takes a single blue surgical mask from a thin cardboard box as the customer approaches the register. A Plexiglass shield hung from the ceiling becomes Clapham’s main defense against the man’s potentially lethal exhalations.
“Would you like a mask?”
It’s less of a question and more of a polite but firm demand. She holds the mask up at his eye level and stares at him as he briefly glances at it.
“Oh, yeah,” he flatly mumbles. “Thanks.”
The tension deflates like the last helium balloon left hanging days after a kid’s birthday party. He grabs the mask from Clapham’s outstretched hand and stretches its loops over his ears as she begins to ring him out.
Minimum wage retail employees face dilemmas like Clapham’s just about every shift: constant anxiety about negligent customers. The convenience store chain Stewart’s, with over 330 stores from New York to southern Vermont, has a mask policy that states that “anyone not wearing a mask/cloth face covering will be denied admittance as per the NYS Department of Health emergency regulation.”
“UNSKILLED” AGAINST THE WORLD
Retail employees have heavy loads to carry on their shoulders. They work at some of the lowest paying jobs in the country, come face to face with hundreds of customers a day and are under substantial pressure to work despite the conditions. In fact, nearly 160 retail workers died from COVID since the pandemic started and over 35,000 were infected or exposed, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
“I would get physically ill before I had to go to work,” Clapham said. “My stomach would hurt so bad every time because I didn’t want to go. I once had a panic attack there.”
This sort of paranoia over the possibility of catching COVID or dying from it leaves some workers desiring counseling. A study from Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health examined grocery store workers’ mental health while working. Of the 104 employees, 14 desired counseling for the constant risk of being exposed to COVID.
“The inability to practice social distancing consistently at work was a significant risk factor for anxiety and depression in this essential worker cohort...these mental health findings support the need to implement further preventive strategies and to provide additional mental health assistance to essential employees,” the study read.
The same study also indicated that customer-facing retail workers were nearly five times as likely to contract COVID compared to the average population. The risk of experiencing severe COVID symptoms isn’t uniform across retail stores’ workforce. On average, frontline retail workers are 40 years old, according to a study from the Urban Institute. About 20% of these 20 million workers are between the ages of 19 and 24, while another 20% are between the ages of 55 to 75.
This older age group is more susceptible to contracting COVID, too. Eight out of 10 deaths caused by COVID-19 are of people aged 65 and older, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. They are also more susceptible to severe illness due to preexisting medical conditions such as heart disease, cardiovascular issues and diabetes.
When stress is thrown into the mix, it becomes a serious health concern.
“I would get physically ill before I had to go to work. My stomach would hurt so bad every time because I didn’t want to go. I once had a panic attack there.”
Stress increases one’s risk for heart disease, metabolic issues and mood disorders, according to University of Iowa industrial psychology professor Adam Butler. It also increases the likelihood of weight gain and unhealthy eating habits. There is a direct correlation between job stress and poor health, especially in a time when young people and older citizens are forced to work against an invisible, deadly threat for relatively little compensation.
“Generally speaking, we would prefer to reduce the occupational stressor if possible,” Butler said. “For employees, that might take the form of effectively managing workload or gently reminding customers to be kind. Employees can also take steps to manage their stress response through strategies such as muscle relaxation, a simple breathing meditation, or cognitively reframing the situation.”
Yet reminding the customer to be kind isn’t a “one size fits all” scenario.
Emily Fego is an employee at Plato's Closet, a chain of secondhand clothing stores, in Danbury, Conn. and worked there during the summer of 2020. During one of Fego’s shifts in early June, a middle-aged woman entered the store without a mask on. Since this is against Plato’s Closet guidelines, as they are a privately owned nonessential business, Fego asked the customer to wear a mask.
“She just said, ‘I have a medical condition,’ and kept walking,” Fego said. “I was so uncomfortable; this scenario was so new to me. My supervisor and I kind of just looked at each other like, ‘what now?’”
Fego’s supervisor approached the woman about wearing a mask. She claimed that masks gave her headaches and impaired her vision. According to InterMountain Healthcare, wearing a mask does not cause headaches due to CO2 buildup, as the CO2 simply passes through the mask. Additionally, according to findings by the American Optometric Organization, dry eyes and irritation can be caused by mask usage, but predominantly on those who wear them for a prolonged period of time; not for a few minutes.
Fego again told the customer to leave the store but this time, the woman agreed to leave only after she was rung up for a purse she wanted. Fego hurriedly cashed her out just to make her exit the shop.
“I remember washing my hands so obsessively the rest of my shift that they were all red and chapped,” Fego said. “I even threw out the scrunchie on my wrist because I was so paranoid it would somehow infect me with COVID.”
DANGERS OF THE JOB
Despite the inherent risks of retail like Fego faced, young people still take jobs similar to hers. While unemployment during the early stages of the pandemic soared, big name retailers like Walmart, Lowe’s and CVS boosted their part-time job openings. According to CNBC, Walmart hired over 400,000 workers in the early months of the pandemic.
When Clapham was looking for a summer job, she wanted something that would help her pay off her student loans but would also give her some spending money for the upcoming semester at SUNY New Paltz. She applied to her local Target and Starbucks, to no avail, until she walked into Stewart’s’ Defreestville location near Albany.
“It was a last ditch effort,” Clapham said. “I just went to Stewart’s because they had paper applications and I sent it in. The next day, the manager called me and I had an interview and then the drug test and then I was hired. It was a bad sign. That usually means no one else wants the job.”
It was her first retail job, as she used to work as a summer camp counselor as a teenager until COVID shut their operations down. Rather than interacting with naive children, she’s interacting with some adults who don’t understand the concept of personal safety.
At Stewart’s, Plexiglass shields in front of the cash registers are typically hung from the ceiling with a small cutout at the bottom to allow payment and items to pass through. (Photo courtesy of MTA via Flickr)
Plexiglass shields are a common sight at retail stores, providing a physical barrier between an employee and a customer to reduce the risk of spreading the virus. As lockdown protocols relaxed in the summer of 2020, Plexiglass demand skyrocketed as businesses sought ways to get their employees back to work safely. According to Bloomberg, Röhm GmbH, a large German Plexiglass manufacturer, sold so many sheets of the clear shatterproof material that they ran out completely in June 2020. They had to wait until October for supply to return.
A report from the University of Washington indicated that while the shields can block respiratory droplets and protect from surface contamination, they do not replace the need for social distancing, mask wearing and practicing good hygiene.
There’s also the limitation of customers simply ignoring the shield.
“People talked around them and knocked them down all the time,” Clapham said. “Plus, there wasn’t a shield over the ice cream so people breathed straight into it...I felt annoyed. People acted like you can’t hear through plastic.”
If a customer somehow missed the shield or didn’t wear a mask and Clapham caught COVID, she wouldn’t be in a comfortable financial position, either.
Many can’t afford to take time off of work despite being sick. There’s an inherent pressure to “suck it up” and “muscle through it” in American workspaces. The U.S. doesn’t universally guarantee paid sick leave, meaning nearly 1 in 3 employees have no paid sick days.
“One time, I had poison ivy all over my body, like on my face and hands and my doctor said not to go to work,” Clapham said. “But no one would cover me. Everyone said no so I just had to go. I didn’t want to be indecent and not show up.”
Clapham simultaneously worked in a telecommunications role through Grassroots Voter Outreach, reminding people to vote during the 2020 election season. (Photo courtesy of Jared LaBrecque)
A study by Accountemps, a staffing firm, concluded that nine out of 10 employees would go to work sick. Of the people interviewed, the majority were between the ages of 25 and 40, similar to the ages of retail employees likely to stay at one job for years. A similar study done at a Pennsylvania hospital found that over 80% of healthcare professionals went to work sick at least once in the span of a year despite 95% of them reporting they shouldn’t.
With such low wages, many simply can’t afford to take days off, with many relying on these jobs to pay the bills.
According to findings in 2017 by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, less than half of all service workers (restaurant employees, retail workers, low-paying healthcare positions) had no sick leave benefits. This was the lowest percentage rating of all employment sectors studied.
Most of that has to do with the paltry, low earnings retail employees receive.
WAGES AND...SUPPORT?
Retail workers also make much less than full-time workers with college backgrounds. They are paid just $10.10 per hour, on average, with the figure varying depending on the sector.
The unemployment rate of retail workers sits at 6.7% as of March 2021. A study by the Pew Research Center in March 2020 indicated that retail workers had the second highest risk of job loss due to COVID-19, behind the transportation industry.
About two-thirds of retail employees are full-time. Most of these full-timers between the ages of 25 and 54 are more likely to stay at a retail job longer than their younger and older counterparts. Therefore, older and largely vulnerable employees are more reliant on their jobs, while younger employees have the benefit of leaving with little consequence if they’re uncomfortable with the work environment.
“People on the whole did not feel positively about their low wages, or about the low wages offered in general to starting workers if they had longer tenure and a better rate,” said Kimberly Bowman, the Senior Projects Manager at the Brookfield Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. “This most often combined with issues relating to scheduling; low wages plus part time hours equals very low wage; and an acute issue with housing affordability in Ontario cities.”
The Canadian research organization’s primary goal is to improve business operations and employee satisfaction. While conducting research for the Institute’s project called “Job Pathways: From theory to practice,” Bowman found that apart from increases in wage, many grocery store employees also desired increased job security and, surprisingly, recognition for what they do.
“Assuming that pay is fixed for these people, as they're on a certain rate that might be set in a collective agreement, we heard from many people that they were confused or frustrated by the way that 'pandemic pay' was handled,” Bowman said. “There was a very consistent theme from interviews around the importance of being treated with respect by your manager.”
Clapham, on the contrary, never felt her manager was looking out for her. When she was overwhelmed at work one day over repeatedly feeling obligated to cover shifts that her manager needed her to work despite Clapham missing schoolwork, he offered an uncouth helping hand.
“He was like, ‘Why do you never ask me for help? I’m always here for you, you can come to me,’” Clapham said. “He gaslit me when I was having a mental breakdown.”
With big name retailers not offering comprehensive COVID-19 relief benefits or programs, job satisfaction decreases and stress increases.
“Resources help employees reach their goals and can be characteristics of the work itself, such as having freedom and autonomy to do the job, as well as characteristics of the work culture, such as a supportive supervisor or coworkers,” Bowman said.
The Brookfield Institute’s study of retail workers found that grocery store workers prioritized higher pay over all else when working during a health emergency, followed closely by job security and a fair work schedule. (Infographic courtesy of Kimberly Bowman)
At Clapham’s Stewart’s location, the majority of employees were older than 40. With Clapham being the youngest employee there for months, she was the least likely to catch COVID but also was statistically the least likely to stay at the job for years. She also didn’t have anyone her age to support her, and with her supervisors always relying on her to come in on days she was off, she grew resentment towards her role.
After working at Stewart’s since June, reminding people to wear masks and cleaning up after them on top of covering understaffed shifts, Clapham quit in March after finding her self-worth and prioritizing her well-being.
“It was getting worse and worse,” Clapham said. “Things weren’t getting done and I had to pick up other people’s slack and I just said f*ck it.”
The past year has forced people to act in their own self interests. We feared for our lives venturing into public. Some of us still do. We wanted to get in and out of public spaces as quickly as possible. It was an “every man for himself” mentality. Appreciation for others and what they bring to our lives has been put on the back burner.
Teenagers, college students and older citizens alike working in the service industry all feel the lack of appreciation. Whether that be from customers, coworkers or managers, minimum wage employees carry a psychological burden on their shoulders.
“I don't think there is much that could remedy the anxiety I had and still have when working during the pandemic,” Emily Fego said. “There's parents not watching their children as they put hangers into their mouths and people wearing bandanas as masks as if that is going to protect anyone from anything. If I wasn't a broke college student, I would definitely not be working because the anxiety it causes is crippling.”