Walmart has a new face mask policy, effective July 20. As the number of confirmed coronavirus cases continues to climb in the U.S., one of the nation’s largest retailers will start requiring all customers and employees to wear face masks inside all American stores.
The chief executives of major U.S. retailers have been quick to voice concern about the safety of employees since the coronavirus struck. Four months into America’s battle with Covid-19, though, just a few national chains required customers to wear masks when this week began.
With more workers getting sick and dying as the pandemic escalates across the country, that’s swiftly changed. Costco was the only U.S. retailer among the 10 largest to have an official requirement, but Best Buy, Walmart and Kroger have joined in the past two days. Kohl’s also announced it would require masks of all customers.
The moves came after Walmart Chief Executive Officer Doug McMillon said earlier in the week that the company followed local rules on mask requirements, which left about a third of its 5,350 U.S. stores without a policy.
“It’s on our minds,” McMillon said Monday. “We’ve done a lot of different things, like reduce our store hours for extra cleaning. We limit how many customers can come into a store. There are markings on the floor, showing how far it is to be separate from someone six feet.”
The push to require masks is “an important step,” said Marc Perrone, president of UFCW International, which represents 1.3 million workers in supermarkets and food processing plants. But he said enforcement of mask policies must be done “by trained professionals, not retail workers already stretched thin.”
Most of the retail industry’s approach has been similar, and similarly ineffectual, labor unions and worker advocates say. Signs pop up asking customers to wear masks, but enforcement has been lax or non-existent. Many chains have justified the lighter touch for the sake of worker’s safety because they don’t want employees to get involved in situations that could turn violent.
“For safety reasons, we have asked our employees to avoid escalated confrontations with non-compliant customers,” CVS said in an emailed statement. “If a customer is not wearing a mask or face covering, we will refer them to our signage and ask for their assistance in remaining compliant with the requirement.”
The company does have a valid point, given that there’s already been several incidents. At a Costco in Florida, a customer was recorded angrily yelling after being asked to don a mask. In Michigan, an unmasked customer stabbed an elderly man in a Quality Dairy store after he was refused service. A 7-Eleven shopper without a mask spit on the counter when she was refused service at a store in Texas.
This leaves the chains that have instituted policies in a difficult spot. Stronger enforcement could be volatile because mask-wearing has morphed from a public-health directive into a partisan issue. President Donald Trump refused to wear one, until recently. And conservative media pushed the narrative that the coverings are unnecessary and encroach on personal freedom, as part of a larger critique that the response to the virus is overblown.
Stricter enforcement of mask requirements will upset some customers but failing to do so could imperil more employees, thus creating greater risk of legal action by sickened workers.
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