Annenberg Radio

Californian Cities enact patchwork of hazard pay ordinances for grocery workers

Some grocery workers wonder if they’ll still be considered essential after the pandemic ends

Devin Ramos’s Safeway in Alameda, where Hazard Pay has been approved, but not immediately enacted like in other cities.

By Sean Flannelly

Stores like Whole Foods, Kroger and Safeway offered employees hero pay at the beginning of the pandemic — a few extra dollars hourly to recognize the risk they were taking. At all three, that raise was cut last summer, leaving some grocery workers wondering when exactly they stopped being heroes. Now, city councils across California are stepping in to mandate a temporary pay raise for the same workers, most recently in San Francisco