How do supermarket staff stay safe at work just now?

[ssd]

Dh stacks shelves and said its so busy customers just crowd round him every day. He asks them to step back when they are too close but when one steps back 2 more step in. We are very strict at home on social distancing. He said at the tills people are told to keep behind a 1metre line but whilst filling shelves customers just crowd him.
He uses hand gel and regularly washes his hands.
But being on the shop floor is dangerous right now.

What can I advise him?

I honestly think that supermarkets need to be strictly enforcing people to stay away from staff and behave responsibly - as in removing them from the store if they don't.

Although I realise that it would probably be very difficult in practice.

Sainsburys sent an email asking customers to keep their distance from staff but people don't listen and are mostly, at heart, absolute dicks.

I understand nurses are being hailed as hries right now and 100% rightly so, we'd all be totally f**d without our NHS, now more than ever, but I'm just not hearing anything of how supermarkets are keeping their staff safe.

Yes I got that email too, but it's not happening and there's nothing in place to enforce it anyway.

I think this is why we need lockdown. Each household is given an timeslot for one person to go to the supermarket and then the supermarkets can limit the amount of people in the store - (I might be wrong) but I think this is happening in France.

Am with you op. My dh works in a small supermarket and does everything. Serving, stacking shelves etc. I'm worried. The shops should at least be enforcing gaps in queues etc.

Dhs supermarket is a superstore, its enormous and full of folk wandering about, coughing and sneezing, mainly older people can I say, who seem to think this is all a big fuss over nothing and want to tell dh this, up close 😳, whilst grabbing his hand

I think that if they sort out online deliveries/click and collect service to be running 24/7 (possibly with the input of the Army), they might be able to radically reduce 'in-person' shoppers. Supermarkets potentially should for most of the day be operating like warehouses with staff restocking shelves for the staff to put together orders to then be delivered for collected from a designated area of the shop/car park.

I've just returned from Tesco, NHS hour. It was complete madness, so many people, the shop was rammed.

They should consider limiting the number of people allowed in the shop at any time.

They are in the thick of it, being coughed on, shoved, and handling shelves, stock and money. They are very high risk.

People need to realise there is PLENTY of food. There is more food, more loo rolls, more bread than we need, people need to chill out.

@NewModelArmyMayhem18 agree with you.

Based on the fact that my local supermarket now has a bouncers as of this weekend, I would be more worried about him being assaulted right now than anything else. The stories I'm hearing from staff there right now are absolutely disgusting. People being spat at, sworn at, called all manner of names, having tins thrown at them. It's disgusting.

Same for me, i work in a retail chemist and the medicines aisles are swamped, not space to keep a distance from anyone when stocking the shelves, people squeeze past to get what they want. At the till they dont keep a distance and still insist on paying in cash. And i find it really difficult to understand / hear someone who is wearing a face mask, so they either take it off or come closer...ive realised how much i lip read when speaking to people!. We are trying our best but it'll be pot luck if any of us catch it or not.

We are seeing otherwise healthy nurses and doctors in hospital or even dying of this from over exposure and inadequate PPE obviously they are exposed to a smaller number of really poorly patients and for longer times, but I don't think enough is being done for supermarket staff. I think they are seen as expendable. People on here telling everyone who's lost jobs to apply to the supermarkets. The jobs they are taking are of the normal employees who are now at home self isolating. But they won't be deemed heroes. Just the expendable work force. It's really shit.

Some one was grabbed by the throat at a nearby tesco. The store i work at has been closing aisles while they replenish during busy hours.

These stories aren't reassuring me at all.

It's really hard but at my supermarket at least the staff members have really come together as a team supporting each other and backing each other up. I think there will definitely be an impact on our mental health once this is all over.

Many will suffer a form of PTSD :-(.

I agree.