“Stronger together. Win together. Let’s help each other stay safe,” says the coronavirus website of Southeastern Grocers, Winn-Dixie’s parent company, which operates hundreds of stores across the South.
And yet, Winn-Dixie waited until Monday night to announce that she will join the stampede of large grocery retailers requiring customers to wear masks in their stores. The company said it will require masks starting July 27.
Walmart, Target, CVS, Walgreens, Kroger and Publix announced last week that they will require the use of masks in stores across the country. The National Retail Federation has encouraged retailers to establish mask policies nationwide to protect shoppers and employees, and nearly 30 states now require wearing masks in public places.
Southeastern announced late last week that Winn-Dixie stores would not require customer masks because they did not want to cause undue friction between customers and employees.
“Our associates have seen masking mandates as a highly charged problem with our customers. We do not want to put our associates in a position to navigate interpersonal conflict or prohibit customers from shopping in our stores,” said Joe Caldwell, director of corporate communications and government affairs for Southeastern Grocers, he wrote in an email this weekend.
However, on Monday afternoon, Southeastern reversed its position, and Caldwell attributed the change to customer comments. The makeover came a few hours after President Donald Trump tweeted a photo of him wearing a black mask and calling him patriotic wearing a mask.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with President Trump’s tweet,” Caldwell said.
Winn-Dixie has around 500 stores in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, and Mississippi, all states that elected Trump in the 2016 election. Trump wore a mask publicly for the first time on July 11 during a hospital visit. military, but until Monday was dismissive of the use of masks.
As many grocery stores did at the start of the pandemic, Southeastern Grocers adjusted store hours in March to provide additional time for stocking and additional cleaning. On June 25, Winn-Dixie stores resumed normal hours of operation, eliminating that additional time for store cleanup, even as coronavirus cases continue to rise across a wide swath of the United States and states begin to recede. reopening times.
And while the supermarket chain installed floor decals and plexiglass partitions on the registers and checks worker temperatures daily, it has “allowed” workers to wear masks and gloves instead of requiring them. While Winn-Dixie has had point unions in the past, none of its stores are currently unionized.
In an editorial last week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reviewed the latest science showing that compliance with universal masking policies reduces transmission of the virus.
Increasingly, retail employees have been embroiled in conflicts over wearing masks. A security guard at a Family Dollar store in Michigan was killed after trying to enforce the mask requirements. In stores like a Trader Joe’s in California, videos of customer conflicts over wearing masks have gone viral. And the mask’s anger has become a tool for partisan disputes.
On July 10, the International Union of Food and Commercial Workers, representing 1.3 million workers, including employees of Kroger, Albertsons, Safeway, Vons and other major supermarket chains, partnered with a coalition of health experts To get a full-page ad in The New York Times, he asked governors, members of Congress, and the Trump administration to make mandatory masks in all 50 states.
Customer response to the Winn-Dixie ad with no mask required last week was swift and binary.
Some customers turned to social media praising the supermarket chain for “offering adults a place to shop without wearing a mask! This is America! We should have freedom!” Others tweeted their disapproval: “We will not shop at your store. Enjoy your special Grim Reaper.”
Bob Hess, 65, is a project manager for a government contractor in Panama City, Florida. He lives in a motorhome next to his home since Hurricane Michael 22 months ago, waiting for the insurance money to be rebuilt. He says the new normal continues to worsen. On Sunday he went to his local Walmart in Lynn Haven.
“They had two of the three entrances closed and forced everyone to queue in the 92-degree heat. My wife and I said to forget this, let’s talk to Winn-Dixie,” he says.
Without lines, without signs of masks, there are almost no clients with masks.
“If I don’t have to wear a mask, I’m not going to,” he says. “I think this has gone overboard. Masks are protecting our bodies from what they must do to increase immunity.”
This is not the first time in recent weeks that Winn-Dixie has swam against the current. In June, as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, many organizations and municipalities removed the word “Dixie” from their names due to its connections to slavery and the Confederacy.
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Within hours of a report on TMZ that Winn-Dixie was considering changing its name from 100 years ago, Caldwell, the spokesman for Southeastern Grocers, said in a statement that the company had no immediate plans to do so, though it affirmed its support. to Black. Live the movement of matter.
“At Southeastern Grocers we are committed to cultivating an inclusive culture and a community that promotes belonging, inclusion and diversity. As such, we oppose racism and support the Black Lives Matter movement across our country,” the statement said.
Caldwell said Monday that there were no immediate plans to change the name of the supermarket chain.
“Our Winn-Dixie banner has proudly served our communities for almost 100 years, yet many things have changed during that time,” he said.
Phil Lempert, editor of SupermarketGuru.com, says that Winn-Dixie’s previous unmasked policy was a kind of whistle, aimed at aligning the company with the values and political stance of its customers.
“If you look back a couple of weeks ago, when Aunt Jemima and the Eskimo cakes were attacked [for their cultural insensitivity], people asked Winn-Dixie to change her name. This is tied to that. His main audience is Trump supporters, “said Lempert.
