Safeway Warehouse Employees Call For More Protection After Deadly Coronavirus Outbreak
TRACY (CBS13) — A Safeway distribution center in Tracy has become the source of the latest outbreak of coronavirus.
As of Friday, 51 workers have tested positive for the virus, and just this week one employee died from complications. Now, employees are saying they are still not being protected.
Concerned about retaliation from the company, multiple employees at the warehouse agreed to anonymously speak with CBS13.
"It's stressful, and now I'm seeing everybody working 16 hours and six days a week," said one employee.
She says her co-workers are overtired, overworked, and now some are sick. She's worried about her own safety.
"Its really just contracting this and taking it home to your kids and being told you have to do the work," she said.
She says she was provided a face mask from the company to wear to work and then re-wash, but she feels that is the only protection she has.
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"With the hand sanitizer bottles, they're empty and I can't tell you where to go get another hand sanitizer bottle," she said.She says she has no information from management on this outbreak.
"It's quiet, it's hush-hush," she said. "I don't know where it's taking place, I was told yesterday, it's everywhere."
Safeway released a statement saying enhanced health screenings are now in place in Tracy, including thermal readings and a verbal screening before every associate enters the facility.
But the employee CBS13 spoke with calls that screening process, "a joke."
She shared a video of her getting screened before going to work. After answering a few quick questions she stands in front of the thermal device that is supposed to take her temperature. After the machine doesn't work, she asks if it is broken. Her temperature finally gets checked, and she asks the staff if they have any medical experience.
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"But you don't have any medical experience, no? I thought they'd put medical doctors out here," she said. "I don't know if they have any background. Are they temporary people that just came out of school in the medical field? Or are they sitting there just checking off the box?"
We called and emailed management at Safeway about these employees' concerns, but we never heard back.
Now this employee says she has to make a choice — her job or her health.
"What are the repercussions if we don't show up for work? Or if we refuse to do something they tell us to do because we know that's the warehouse where the person got sick," she said.
The Safeway statement also goes on to say- they've closed down break rooms and common areas here in hopes of encouraging social distancing procedures.
We also reached out to the union representing the workers here, but they have not returned our request for comment.
