More than 70,000 Stop & Shop and Peapod employees in Connecticut and other states across the Northeast have received a 10% pay bump and two additional weeks of paid leave if they become sick during the COVID-19 outbreak, union officials say.
The additional pay and benefits from Netherlands-based food retail giant Ahold Delhaize comes almost a year after unionized Stop & Shop workers in Connecticut accepted a new three-year labor contract that ended a bitter 11-day work stoppage on Easter Sunday.
Employees went on strike in April 2019, several months after labor negotiations broke down between Ahold and the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, which represents about 31,000 Stop & Shop workers in Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. At issue were healthcare and pension benefits, wages, and weekend and holiday pay, among others.
It wasn’t immediately clear Monday how many Connecticut workers at Stop & Shop, and its online delivery service Peapod, would receive a pay increase and additional paid leave. The duration of the pay and benefit increase for workers is also unclear.
[Read more: As COVID-19 outbreak ravages economy, Barton Reeves plots course to launch CT’s paid-leave program]
UFCW International President Marc Perrone in a statement said the additional pay and benefits will help protect workers and the food supply throughout the region.
“As we know, grocery workers like Stop & Shop employees have been on the front lines of this crisis, serving the needs of millions of families in the Northeast,” said Perrone, whose union represents 1.3 million workers in grocery, retail and other industries nationwide.
“Protecting them is absolutely essential to our communities and food supply now more than ever,” he continued.
The outbreak of coronavirus is pushing Americans to buy their groceries online, a development that could have a lasting effect on the supermarket industry.
While shopping for books and electronics online and ordering dinner through delivery apps have become staples of American life, most customers still prefer to purchase their meat and vegetables at the store. Last year, just 4% of grocery sales in the United States came online, according to Nielsen.
However, with shoppers stuck in their homes in the wake of the virus, online grocery shopping is exploding. Downloads of Instacart, Walmart’s grocery app and Shipt increased 218%, 160%, and 124% respectively last Sunday compared with a year prior.
“We are seeing a larger percentage of customers over the age of 60 that are coming online,” said JJ Fleeman, chief e-commerce officer for Ahold in the U.S., which also owns brands like Food Lion. “We’re seeing a lot of new customers coming into the channel.”
A CNN report contributed to this story
