A new survey examines the experiences of frontline grocery store and drug retail workers during the COVID-19 pandemic and the lasting effects five years later. As farmworkers start to fall ill with a rapidly evolving avian flu, the lessons of the last pandemic loom large for the food industry.
Around 100,000 grocery workers fell ill and hundreds died from the Covid-19 pandemic. These deaths climbed into the thousands when families and community members of food workers were included in statistics. For many food workers still in the day to day retail grind, this is not a trauma they can easily move past.
“Every single one of us was exposed to COVID-19. So many of my coworkers got sick—one almost died, and another lost five family members in a month, including her father. I got COVID twice. The second time, in 2024, it landed me in the ER and led to knee surgery,” said Paszion Horner-Smith, a Front End Supervisor at Vons in Granada Hills. “The trauma we went through has given so many of us PTSD. COVID-19 didn’t just change our lives, it destroyed them. We’re still struggling with that depression, anxiety, and anger, all while asking ourselves, ‘How sick am I going to get next?”
On the fifth anniversary of COVID-19 being declared a global pandemic and a national health emergency, the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 770 union and the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy (LAANE) released the results of a survey that illustrates the lasting impact of the pandemic on essential workers.
Survey results show that in the five years since the pandemic began, over half the respondents felt that their lives had changed dramatically. Over 51% said their mental health suffered, and nearly 44% said they are worse off financially, while 31% felt their physical health had suffered.
“It was scary. I felt a lot of anxiety. I was scared and angry. At the onset of the pandemic three of my co-workers and I walked out of our store. We felt unsafe when management let large crowds of people into our store despite the Health Department mandates on safety protocols. I refused to work under these conditions. I felt unsafe and walked off in protest. Then, I got into my car and broke down in a full-blown panic attack,” said Mary Mueller, a cashier at a Los Angeles-area Ralphs. “There were many days where I just couldn’t avoid crying and had to take several weeks off because I felt so overwhelmed and unsafe. I got infected with Covid three times and my mental health was severely affected. I didn’t fully recover. I don’t feel like I am the same person I was before COVID.”
Throughout the pandemic, frontline grocery store workers, just like first responders, were deemed essential employees and were not able to shelter in place. The surge in customer volumes while the economy shut down meant that market leading companies reaped enormous profits, much of which was redistributed to executives and shareholders. Instead of reaping these profits, grocery employees, who are disproportionately women and people of color, bore the brunt of COVID-19’s devastating impacts. The survey also showed that employers failed to provide emotional support for dealing with difficult customers and that many stores exposed workers to infection through a lack of timely and effective protective measures.
Key Survey Findings:
- Mental Health Impact on Workers: Contracting COVID-19 brought significant physical challenges, but the mental and emotional toll of the pandemic was even harder to endure. The mental anguish often outweighed the physical strain of the illness itself.
- COVID-19 Infections: A high number of workers were infected at work, many contracting COVID more than once.
- Financial Strain: Many workers reported being worse off financially now than before the pandemic.
- Customer Treatment of Workers: Nearly 50% of workers felt customers treated them worse during and after COVID-19.
- Safety Concerns: Employers failed to inspire confidence that worker safety was a priority.
“At the beginning of the pandemic, me and my coworkers had to work while there was a cluster COVID infection in my store, with nearly 20 employees sick with the virus. It was terrifying and took a huge toll on my mental health. I was terrified of bringing the virus home to my grandparents and three little siblings. The company expected us to keep going, even as so many of my coworkers were getting sick. Without us, the stores wouldn’t have run,” said Gabriela Morales, an employee at Ralphs in Hollywood, California.
An anonymous employee stated that “I am now, and have been, homeless since the pandemic. It caused me to have a mental breakdown several times due to stress not knowing how I was going to pay rent and then I lost my place to live due to all the stress. I lost my car as well so it really left me homeless and on the streets. I’m still dealing with homelessness and I’ve been using all the resources I know of in my area.”
Another employee also offered that “Our employer loved to say to the public that we employees were ‘heroes’ for working during the pandemic, however, they have not shown any appreciation for the risks we took, in our pay or quality of life standards at work.”
Five years on, as inflation rages on and a wave of new crises faces the food industry, from wildfires to avian flu and Trump-imposed import tariffs, grocery workers still bear the scars of the Covid-19 pandemic. Mental health, financial strains and safety concerns remain top of mind for the folks stocking shelves and feeding the country. Whether their concerns are heeded during the next pandemic may just be a matter of how essential these workers really are.
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