San Mateo’s Unanimous Decision

The San Mateo ordinance requires large grocery stores and drugstores in that city to provide their workers with hazard pay of $5 per hour in addition to their hourly wages. For the average drugstore or grocery worker, that hazard pay reflects a 35-40% increase in their hourly wage. The San Mateo ordinance also applies to stores with over 750 employees nationwide and 10% of their floor space to selling food.

Passed on March 1, 2021, with a unanimous vote, the San Mateo councilmembers lodged their strong support for the ordinance. Having spearheaded the mandate, Councilmember Diane Papan of San Mateo led the effort to support grocery and drugstore workers during the spring and summertime.

Grocery and drugstore workers have suffered from constant exposure to customers, and companies such as Walgreens and Kroger neglected to reinstate hazard pay after the spring and summer months of 2020. While a small percentage of national corporations have continued their policies of hazard pay, many have offered bonuses during the holiday or added compensation for those who administer the vaccine, an integral step in America’s return to normalcy.

In a written statement, Joseph Goode, Senior Director of Corporate Communications at CVS Health, noted that bonuses were provided at the beginning of the pandemic to “demonstrate [CVS Health’s] appreciation to colleagues who continue to serve patients and customers during a time of great uncertainty.” Goode also drew attention to the fact that CVS Health provided $250 bonuses to nearly 250,000 employees at the beginning of the pandemic, and it has recently implemented an increase of $2 per hour in the salaries of pharmacy technicians administering COVID-19 immunizations.

Despite these efforts, Papan did not feel as if private corporations were being proactive enough, which is why she sought to compensate workers for the undue risks they continue to face during their daily jobs.

Papan said, “They weren’t all [providing hazard pay], so we had to come up with some sort of uniform endeavor. I felt that the stores conceded that there was a hazard and paid it initially, so it begs the questions as to why it stopped.”

The ordinance notably covers workers from local drugstores or grocery stores, but it exempts similar industries from having to abide by the mandate.

Stressing the importance of the grocery stores and drugstores to residents, Papan said, “Everyone needs food. Food was considered a frontline job in the direct pipeline to keep people going during the pandemic, so that’s why we singled out [those industries].”

When explaining her logic for providing grocery and drugstore workers with government-mandated hazard pay, Papan highlighted the difference in the nature of frontline workers’ jobs. According to Papan, a grocery worker is exposed to about 250 people during a full shift of eight hours, and COVID-19 exposure was never contemplated by those workers when they took the job.

Papan said, “I felt quite strongly that when you signed up to be a grocery or drugstore worker, many didn’t necessarily sign up for that kind of risk. I mean, it’s one thing to work in the medical industry, where you know there could be a risk, but not when you’re doing this sort of work.”

As many small, local businesses ceased to exist during the pandemic, the council was acutely aware of the fact that the increased wages could spell financial ruin for smaller stores in their municipality. Papan explained the decision to set the standard to only affect businesses with at least 750 employees nationwide.

“[The council] does not want this to apply to small mom and pop stores. We also do not want it to apply to regional grocers who have already done quite a bit in terms of compensation; we would rather target the larger stores who have made record profits and have the resources,” Papan said. 

In supporting essential workers in drugstores and grocery stores, Papan highlighted the council’s motivation to help workers as they navigate between their homes and a high-exposure workplace.

Papan said, “It’s one of the things I felt really proud of, supporting people who are in such high-exposure scenarios. It was the right thing to do.”