Members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) held a press conference on April 17 to call for better safety protocols in retail stores.
The collective called for passage of the Retail Worker Safety Act, a bill sponsored by New York State Senator Jessica Ramos that would require store owners to implement violence prevention programs at their retail locations; trainings to help store employees understand how to quell workplace violence; and would mandate stores to install panic buttons for use when violence erupts.
RWDSU members wanted to see the bill passed in the 2024 budget, but it didn’t make it through. The Retail Worker Safety Act, which is co-sponsored by State Senators Jabari Brisport, Iwen Chu, Cordell Cleare, and Jeremy A. Cooney, is currently still in committee.
The bill is needed, said Michael McKennan, an operations technician at H&M in Harlem who said he also occasionally works at H&M’s stores on 34th and 42nd Streets. Workers at major retail stores like H&M, on prominent streets, are unprotected from occasional violence, claimed McKennan. “[W]hy should we have to apply or have to ask or wait for someone to get hurt or injured––maybe a customer, myself, or a coworker––before [a plan is put in place]? It’s not like these companies don’t know this.”
Having dealt with customers who have spit on him and who have taken a swing at him, McKennan said there should be a company policy specifying how to deal with workplace violence. “I don’t want to have to fight for something that’s rightfully mine,” he said. “God gave me the knowledge and wisdom to protect myself, but at the same time, the companies are responsible for me [while I’m at work]. And I don’t want them telling my family, ‘Oh, I’m sorry.’ I don’t want to hear that. Not just about me, about anybody: ‘Oh, well, we’re sorry.’ Yes. You’re sorry because you don’t do what you’re supposed to do. And you’re sorry because your concern is only pertaining to you and not to us––and it shows, statistically.”
Bear Spiegel, who works at the Barnes & Noble in Union Square, said that it is mainly because his store recently unionized that workers have gotten training on how to deal with security and de-escalation issues. “Being in Union Square, we are a destination point for locals and tourists alike, so we get people from all walks of life, which is generally fantastic. But we also will often get people who are combative, who may be unstable and we as workers are the first line of people who have to deal with that before managers or security becomes involved,” Spiegel said. “Booksellers and cafe workers, we get harassed basically every day. It’s mainly verbal harassment, but it has gotten physical on a number of occasions.”
Lorraine Williams works as a deli clerk at an ACME Grocery Store in Westchester and as tech support at Bloomingdales in the city. She said she has never been given any real training about what to do to deal with violence. She said that, at the most, retail workers are asked to watch a short video that shows what it’s like to be in the midst of a store when there is an active shooter. “You watch the film. …There’s no one training [you]. There’s no one that [you] can ask questions [to]. They just expect you to watch the film and just learn how to protect yourself in a situation if there’s an active shooter that comes on the premises.”
How to be safe in the workplace
Jerome Bridges, the scan coordinator at the Tops Friendly Markets in Buffalo, was working on May 14, 2022, when a mass shooter arrived and killed 10 Black customers. Bridges described being initially uncertain about what he was hearing—he thought it was firecrackers or a car backfiring. Once that same noise entered the store, he along with others ran for cover.
He tried to run to his office, but someone else had already taken the spot. “So, I ran to the conference room. I grabbed my produce manager at the time, my night ops manager, a cashier, and about six customers and I barricaded us in with a door. You could still hear him shooting inside the store. Come to find out he was shooting at the dairy case where people were hiding. As he was shooting, he was going down the wall shooting at the stuff behind the wall, so I’m guessing he knew where the rooms were at in the back part of the building.”
Bridges still has nightmares from that day, and said he and his fellow employees were not prepared to deal with that kind of mass violence. Now management has a blue light system, a signal that lets everyone know if there is an active shooter in the store. And managers and security personnel have access to technology that allows them to signal emergency services if needed. “Basically,” Bridges said, “we need proper training and a proper evacuation method to get all customers safely out the store.”
RWDSU did a survey of its union members and found that 80% of them are worried about an active shooter in their stores, 72% think they’d feel safer if they had regular training on how to be safe in the workplace, and 88% of workers want a silent panic button installed to help them deal with emergency situations.
“Nobody wants to go to work expecting to be assaulted by a customer or experience an active shooter,” said Edwin Quezada, who works as produce manager at a Long Island Stop & Shop. “But they should know what to do if the unthinkable happens.”