Berkeley unanimously approves risk premium for grocery store workers

On Tuesday, Berkeley city council unanimously passed an emergency order guaranteeing an additional $ 5 per hour risk allowance for grocery store workers during the pandemic. The ordinance applies to companies with 300 or more employees. The pay increase will take effect immediately and will remain until the city enters the yellow level on the state’s COVID-19 risk rating scale.

City council first considered the risk premium proposal when council members Terry Taplin, Rigel Robinson and Ben Bartlett, along with Mayor Jesse Arreguín, presented it at the January 19 council meeting. At the time, council members decided to ask the city manager and city attorney to revise the ordinance before enacting the risk premium into law; Board members have since reread the review. On Tuesday evening, Taplin presented the emergency item to the podium and council members voted it on the agenda for final consideration.

Berkeley will join a few other Bay Area cities that have adopted similar risk premium measures. In early February, Oakland City Council voted in favor of an additional $ 5 an hour wage for workers in grocery stores with 300 workers or more or 25,000 square feet or more. Oakland was soon followed by San Jose, who narrowly approved a $ 3 per hour increase, and San Leandro, who approved a $ 5 per hour increase. And last night, the same night Berkeley City Council passed its law, Santa Clara County also approved a risk premium ordinance that would temporarily raise salaries for employees at large grocery stores and pharmacies in non-areas. county incorporated.

At Tuesday’s meeting, Taplin clarified and pointed out that the increase will have a significant impact on hourly workers. (The new legislation will not apply to management personnel or stores that already have a risk premium.) “It’s one thing to go out and support essential workers, another to support it with legislation that supports them,” Taplin said.

One of those workers who will see the benefits of the new law is John Gomez, a grocery store worker who spoke at the meeting to advocate for the $ 5 per hour increase, who, according to him, would provide a monetary cushion to workers who put themselves. at risk of exposure to COVID-19 every day they are in stores. “We come across anti-masks, we cough, spit, swear… we get sick and some of us are dead,” he said.

While board member Rashi Kesarwani voted to approve the risk premium, she expressed concern for the unintended consequences that could affect residents of Berkeley. Pointing out a “Berkeley fee” of $ 2 that third-party delivery companies now charge customers in response to the city’s delivery charge cap, Kesarwani said, “I’m a little worried that grocery stores will pass on some or all of it. all of these costs. to consumers, but it’s important to try. “

“If companies decide to punish customers [by gouging prices]… Because they are asked to pay their workers fairly to compensate for the risk of being on the front line of a global pandemic… so that more reflects their ethics, ”Taplin said in a follow-up phone conversation with Berkeleyside. “I imagine the grocers would want to protect their workers.”