Julia Stick working at Winco during the COVID-19 pandemic Caylee Caldwell // AS Review
By Caylee Caldwell
Bellingham City Council passed a new ordinance requiring businesses to pay grocery store workers a bonus for hazard pay during the pandemic as front line workers.
Bellingham City Council approved the ordinance, voting five in favor and two opposed, for a $4 per hour hazard pay for grocery store workers working at stores employing 40 or more employees. The ordinance aims to recognize and support front line grocery store workers considered essential during the pandemic.
Lisa Anderson, representing the 5th ward [Western’s campus, South Hill, Sehome, and Puget] on the council, suggested the idea of hazard pay to the city council after similar ordinances passed in California and Seattle.
According to Anderson, stores originally increased pay or gave bonuses as a form of hazard pay at the beginning of the pandemic. As it progressed however, some stores reverted to pre-pandemic wages despite the continued state of emergency and worsening COVID case numbers.
Anderson spoke with grocery store workers individually as well, stopping outside stores to speak to those willing to share their stories.
“To talk to somebody who had to go to work, who had no choice because of the economics and not being able to get employment, and the fear and the anxiety and the stress it had caused her for a year, I felt something had to be done because nobody else was in a position to do it,” Anderson said.
Julia Stick, a student at Western, works at Winco in Bellingham. While Stick says that working in a grocery store has been getting better, she has had to deal with difficult customers and mask wearing.
Stick’s manager pulled her and her co-workers aside a few days before the ordinance went into effect to tell them the pay would be going out soon. Stick, who hadn’t heard about the increase before then, was more than ready to receive the pay.
“I thought that it was a little late, considering it’s been over a year since the pandemic started, but I was glad it was finally happening. It’s nice because I feel like we are being compensated pretty well for working with the public,” Stick said.
According to Anderson, some employers even failed to inform employees of peers with positive cases.
“I think it’s really critically important to recognize these employees, these community members, who have sacrificed a lot during the pandemic so that we can put food on our table,” Anderson said. “It would be nice for them to be able to be recognized for that, but also be able to have a little more income.”
Kaylie McRea, a Western student, works at Haggen and has since the beginning of winter quarter. While McRea didn’t start working at a grocery store until later in the pandemic, she still experiences the risks and frustrations of being an essential worker.
“I think it should have been happening this whole time, just because it is a risk you put yourself and the people you live with at. Also, the emotional toll COVID takes on people and asking them to work in that kind of environment,” McRea said.
While there has been much support from the community for the ordinance, not everyone is in agreement when it comes to the hazard pay.
Gene Knutson, who represents the 2nd Ward [King Mountain, Irongate,Barkley, and Cornwall Park] on the city council, voted against passing the ordinance along with council member, Pinky Vargas.
“I’ve been around for 28 years and I’ve been through a lot of issues that come through the city of Bellingham, we’ve never been asked to intervene. I just didn’t think we should do it now and they [the council] did it,” Knutson said.
Along with being concerned based on past experiences, Knutson is also worried about how Bellingham might enforce the ordinance if grocery stores decide not to follow the council’s guidelines.
In larger cities, like Seattle, there are compliance offices specifically utilized in order to enforce ordinances such as these. Bellingham doesn’t have a compliance office like the big cities and Knutson believes that this will prove to be a problem.
“There’s nothing the city of Bellingham can do to the grocery stores if they don’t pay it, so it’s unenforceable and I don’t believe we should pass laws that we can’t enforce,” Knutson said.
While it’s true that Bellingham doesn’t have an office to enforce ordinances, Anderson says that there are two options to ensure enforcement: the “Right of Action” and unions. The “Right of Action” in the city, which allows employees to take companies to court in the case of not being paid. And, if grocery store workers are unionized, they can come together and the union could assist if the employees are not being paid enough.
“They would have to basically double how much they owe and there would be a fine, and there is also a clause in there that if the employee feels that they’ve been retaliated against, they have the right for suing with that too,” Anderson said. “Ultimately it’s just cheaper to pay the hazard pay than to not.”
The ordinance focuses on chain businesses because Bellingham can’t do cost analysis for all small businesses, and doesn’t want to put them out of business if they can’t pay.
Knutson has already been noticing layoffs in some businesses as well as hours being cut and worries that it will only go downhill.
“I just hope that, as late in the game as we are with the pandemic, they pay it for a while. I’m just afraid of the higher prices that can happen, it’s already happened and laying off people,” Knutson said.
Despite the worries of some council members and the possible downsides, grocery store workers have been positive about the changes so far. Students like McRea and Stick who have already gotten the extra pay are excited for, not just the pay, but the recognition.
The Bellingham City Council will re-evaluate the ordinance in four months and decide whether to continue requiring hazard payments based on community response and COVID data.