Petition seeks paid sick leave for Smith’s Food & Drug workers
An online petition has called for the parent company of Smith’s Food & Drug stores to provide paid sick leave to help slow the spread of COVID-19 and protect shoppers and workers.
There are more than 65,000 signatures for the petition started by MoveOn.org member Nandini Jammi and directed toward Kroger Co.
Kroger said two of its employees have tested positive for the COVID-19 virus and are recovering. One was employed at the King Soopers grocery chain in Colorado, and the other at Fred Meyer, a grocery chain in Washington state. Both are subsidiaries of Kroger.
The company also said it has enacted an emergency leave policy that allows paid time off for workers diagnosed with the new coronavirus and those placed under a mandatory quarantine by a doctor or public health authority.
“Reports have started to come in that Kroger employees are getting sick from the coronavirus,” Jammi says in the post. “But in the face of increased public criticism, Kroger, a $26 billion corporation, is refusing to provide paid sick leave for employees unless they have tested positive for COVID-19 or are placed in mandatory quarantine by a medical professional. Instead of taking a simple step of letting sick workers simply call in sick Kroger is refusing to use their enormous power to do the right thing for workers.”
There are about 20 Smith’s Food & Drug stores in the Las Vegas Valley.
Contact Tony Garcia at tgarcia@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0307. Follow @TonyGLVNews on Twitter. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
