HAC, an Oklahoma company owned by Cash Saver and Homeland, is owned by an employee. Its chief executive, Mark Jones, said last year’s hero pay was “a reflection of the boom in our stores, and when the boom was dead it took the right time to end it.” He said it was a big expense for the company, which has about 80 stores and 3,400 employees and competes with Walmart.
Even with better years than usual, groceries are a “typically less profitable” business, Mr. Jones said. As of March, he said, “it was a big question whether the local grocery store would survive and if everyone was going online.”
Ms. Sockwell said he was more concerned about vaccine delays for grocery workers, especially given that his colleagues were working every hour they could, at the minimum wage.
“Most of my employees are ahead, they rarely have a high school diploma,” Ms. Sockwell said UFCW’s local unit is trying to get Oklahoma officials to put grocery workers on the priority list for vaccinations. “They want to do anything to keep food and electricity in their homes.”
He added, “We are working people who don’t need bachelor’s and master’s degrees, but we are still people.”
At least 13 states have made some grocery store workers eligible for the Covid-19 vaccine in at least some counties. They are Alabama, Arizona, California, Delaware, Illinois, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Nebraska, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wyoming.
