Proposal includes hazard pay, beefed-up vaccine rollout, but NGA says legislative battles lie ahead
President-elect Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan COVID-19 relief proposal, announced yesterday, drew plaudits from the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) and FMI-The Food Industry Association.
UFCW hailed the legislative package’s call for more coronavirus safety measures for essential frontline workers, including COVID-19 vaccines, as well as enhanced pandemic-related compensation and benefits, namely hazard pay for frontline grocery and retail workers.
Meanwhile, FMI credited the Biden plan’s focus on boosting the rate of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, an area where the grocery industry trade group said supermarkets can play a pivotal role. Fellow food retail trade organization the National Grocers Association, however, said the overall bill faces significant hurdles in Congress.
The Mint’s facilities in Denver and Philadelphia worked overtime in the second half of 2020 so that banks and retailers could get more change into customers’ hands.
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Discount grocer to sell off most corporate-run stores to independent operators
Save A Lot is transitioning to a wholesale business model in which the discount grocer plans to sell more than 300 corporate-operated locations to current and new retail partners.
St. Louis-based Save A Lot said Monday that it has sold 51 company-operated stores in the Tampa, Fla., market to independent grocer Fresh Encounter Inc., which will continue to run those locations under the Save A Lot banner.
“We are excited to expand our partnership with Michael Needler and the Fresh Encounter team, who have been fantastic partners, strong operators and excellent ambassadors of the Save A Lot brand,” Kenneth McGrath, CEO of Save A Lot, said in a statement. “Through the relicensing transactions we are executing across our footprint, we believe that we will be even better-positioned to continue to serve the communities in which we operate. We currently have a dedicated group of retail partners tha
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Retail workers have been touted as frontline heroes throughout the pandemic, by companies and the public alike.
Protections for retail employees remain weak in the United States, and many workers and labor activists have called for companies to do more.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did recently vote to recommend that grocery workers receive priority vaccinations, however.
Early on in the coronavirus pandemic, it looked like retail workers might ascend to the role of societal heroes, taking on a designation usually reserved for military personnel, firefighters, and medical professionals in the United States.