In mixed and conservative areas, workers said, employer policies were often the only thing standing between them and customers who were neither masked nor vaccinated. As a result, they feel far more exposed now.
Janet Wainwright, a meat cutter at a Kroger supermarket in Yorktown, Va., stands for a portrait on May 28, 2021.
More than a dozen retail, hospitality and fast-food workers across the country interviewed by The New York Times expressed alarm that their employers had used the CDC guidance to make masks optional for vaccinated customers. Some, like Wainwright, said they had been vaccinated but worried they could still get sick or infect family members who were not or could not get vaccinated. Others said they had yet to be vaccinated.
“Retailers were asking and requiring you to wear masks,” said Willy Solis, a shopper for the delivery app Shipt in Denton, Texas, who works in stores like Target, Kroger and CVS. “A large majority of people were still doing the right thing and wearing them.” That suggests that a significant number of Republicans have worn masks only to comply with rules, not because they believed it was important, said Ashley Kirzinger, the Kaiser foundation’s associate director for public opinion and survey research. She cited polling showing that Republicans were also less likely to be vaccinated.
“Security won’t ask them to show a vaccine card,” he said. “It’s certainly stressful amongst my co-workers.” “If you go two minutes in any direction, it’s a blood-red state,” said Mike Mason, an employee at an REI store in Bellingham, Washington. “It’s a weird mix of two different personalities.” Mason, along with employees of REI stores near Salt Lake City, Des Moines, Iowa, and Columbus, Ohio, said the percentage of customers wearing masks had dropped significantly after the change. The timing was an additional source of stress because the retailer began its annual anniversary sale a few days later — typically one of its busiest periods of the year.
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