Distribution slows after Kroger warehouse worker in Memphis tests positive for COVID-19

This article has been updated with comment from Kroger sent late Thursday evening and with information from experts regarding the coronavirus and food safety.

After learning a co-worker tested positive for coronavirus, Kroger warehouse workers late Thursday stopped fulfilling orders at the grocery giant's Delta Distribution Center in Memphis, where 400 workers supply 100 stores across the Midsouth.

"We really in a hazardous situation and we scared," Maurice Wiggins, a forklift driver and father of two told The Commercial Appeal from the warehouse floor.

"Half the workers have gone home. They scared for their safety. The ones that is here, they so tense they scared to touch the equipment," Wiggins said, adding that the company would not disclose which shift the employee who tested positive worked.

"They have diabetes, they have asthma. If they catch it, they'll be high-risk," Wiggins, 30, said of his co-workers. "Me personally, my Mama, she got diabetes. I can't go around my Mama, I got to get tested now."

Wiggins said those who remain on the floor are trying to get some work done. "But the topic of conversation is, 'What you guys going to do,'" he said of Kroger.

Food safety tips: Cleaning produce in the age of coronavirus

At the Delta Distribution Center, which handles approximately 120,000 cases of groceries a day, workers are waiting for a response from Kroger as to changes moving forward. The company told workers they couldn't give them an answer regarding whether their rates will increase to hazard pay until Friday morning.

"Today, an associate working in the Delta Division Distribution Center has reported testing positive for COVID-19," a statement provided late Thursday by company spokeswoman Teresa Dickerson said.

"The associate has not been in the distribution center since Saturday. The safety of our associates and customers is our top priority. The distribution center has been thoroughly deep cleaned and sanitized. We are supporting the individual, following guidelines from local officials and are taking extreme measures to ensure the safety of all employees at our site," Kroger's statement said.

Dickerson emailed Friday that Kroger would begin checking each worker to see if they have a fever, which is defined as a temperature of 100.4 degrees or higher, before entry. That could be as early as Saturday, she said, when no-touch thermometers arrive.

Meanwhile, Kroger's "routine" sanitation plan involves all surfaces commonly used and all equipment. And sanitizer dispensers and wipes are available in all common rooms, Dickerson said. She did not respond regarding the frequency at which routine cleaning takes place. Vendors and visitors can no longer visit the site, Dickerson added.

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Food safety

The warehouse has been moving approximately 120,000 bulk cases of grocery and supplies per day since the coronavirus outbreak, according to a union representative.

According to a March 17 New England Journal of Medicine study on the coronavirus' ability to linger on surfaces, the virus can last on cardboard for 24 hours, according to a USA TODAY analysis of the report.

More: Here's Kroger's cleaning plan after worker tests positive for coronavirus; food safety info

Food science experts also told USA TODAY, for a March 27 story, that there's no evidence or documented cases of COVID-19 that suggest the virus can be transmitted through food. But there is still a chance to get sick if you pick up an item someone infected has sneezed or coughed on, they said.

Noting that information and guidance is constantly changing, professor Don Schaffner, who teaches in the food science department at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said that the virus doesn't like being outside the body. After a couple of days, the virus would be undetectable on a hypothetical apple that someone with COVID-19 sneezed on, he said.

"What we believe is true is that you won't get coronavirus from that apple, but we don't know that definitively," Schaffner said.

Distribution

Barry Brown, a former Kroger warehouse worker of 15 years and business agent for Teamsters Local 667, which represents the workers, said he learned about the positive test result from a union steward who heard about it on the warehouse floor around 3:30 p.m. Thursday.

As of 9:15 pm, Brown said he did observe a special cleaning crew come in to disinfect the facility.

But as for whether the workers' morale will be ready by morning, Brown let out a long sigh. "I don't know. I don't know," he said.

Wiggins said his disillusionment with the company for which he recently logged a 97-hour week amid a mandatory 7-day work week has grown. "They only care about us getting cases out,' he said, "not our health and safety."

Kroger didn't notify union, Teamsters say

Earlier in the day, Kroger didn't notify union representatives as they're supposed to, Brown said. "They didn't call me. I sent an email out, letting them know I knew from one of my stewards."

The company then called him to arrange a conference call with the Teamsters around 5 p.m., focused on the safety precautions to be implemented as of Friday morning, Brown said.

Brown said at first the company was still trying to get the employees to work as normal through their shifts.

"They're not going to shut the building down," said Brown, who worked on the floor for 15 years before becoming a full-time union representative. "I done watched a supervisor have a heart attack up in there and die. And all they did was move the body over."

Safety plans promised, but not hazard pay

Brown said Kroger promised to sterilize the site with "20 spray bottles of bleach and water to spray down the equipment." The company also said it hired two temporary workers to wipe down headsets and, Brown said, Kroger plans to check workers' temperatures — a measure recently implemented nearby at the FedEx Express World Hub.

The Teamsters recently bargained with Kroger, a multi-billion company and the largest grocery chain in the U.S., to reduce workers' shifts from 16 hours a day since the coronavirus hit, to 12 hours a day. They also bargained to have the company increase cleaning from two to three times a day and to wipe down door handles and provide hand sanitizer.

Unlike other major grocers, including Meijer and SaveMart, Kroger has not increased its workers' base pay during the pandemic.

More: Meet the Memphis Kroger warehouse workers keeping 100 Midsouth grocery stores stocked

"I've got guys calling me, texting, saying they want hazard pay, saying 'I want something if I'm risking my life,'" Brown said. "These guys up in there very upset. For what they're doing, what they're providing for the Midsouth."

"They didn’t walk out," Brown said of the workers. "But they trying to figure out, you know, cause we already been asking them, 'What are y’all doing to protect us? To protect us from everything, cleaning-wise?'"

The positive test result comes three days after 50-year-old warehouse worker Rodney Jones told a CA reporter he wished the company was more proactive about worker safety amid the coronavirus epidemic.

"It's kind of congested to where you are kind of thinking about safety. It caught everyone off guard. But now it's been a week," Jones said. "We should have been more prepared."

'It took someone having it for you to do it'

Brown said he's frustrated the company is only now taking actions workers have been asking for. And, he said, "Use some common sense." Brown said he doesn't understand why break times have not been staggered or why the company delivered pizzas on one recent occasion.

"You felt that you did something good buying pizza for everybody. Everybody was just in one break room, eating pizza — like nothing going on in the world, like it’s not serious," Brown said.

"My whole thing is, it's just crazy it took someone having it for you to do it," Brown said of implementing coronavirus-related workplace safety measures. "It's always something got to happen first and then the company respond. Instead of just listening to us."

Sarah Macaraeg is an award-winning journalist who writes investigations, features and the occasional news story for The Commercial Appeal. She can be reached at sarah.macaraeg@commercialappeal.com, 901-529-2889 or on Twitter @seramak