Auburn City Council discussions about whether to mandate $4 in pandemic hazard pay for front line workers at large grocery stores in Auburn appear to have raised more questions than they settled.

For instance, would grocery stores be able to afford this bump in pay? Would it force them to close their doors? How much do these workers actually earn?

And, pointedly, why is the city talking about mandating anything to grocery stores?

Dissatisfaction with the answers city leaders got from each other over the months finally led them to postpone a scheduled vote on the proposed ordinance until May 17, so they could get satisfactory answers to their questions from people outside the council chambers.

That is, from the employers and employees themselves or representatives.

At the May 10 study session, one week before that vote, council members got their wish and heard from representatives of both sides of the debate: the Northwest Grocery Association and Washington Food Industry Association, representing, respectively, stores that are part of national chains such as Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer; and smaller, independent, family-owned stores like Saar’s Super Saver Foods on Auburn Way North.

Representing grocery store workers at Safeway, Albertsons and Fred Meyer in Auburn was a representative of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 21.

Holly Chisa, representing the Northwest Grocery Association, noted that its member stores have worked since February 2020 to support their communities and their employees during COVID-19.

Chisa offered the following recorded wage rates for some of NGA’s grocery store members in Auburn. While the data is not complete from all of its members in Auburn, Chisa said, it is representative of the contracted wages that have been negotiated with its majority, union-represented workforce.

The average wage provided below does not include corporate staff wages, and the store current average wage does not include COVID-19 additional wage paid during 2020.

■ Albertsons: $19.27 per employee, $159,185 above normal;

■ Safeway, $19.39 per employee, $184,258 above normal

■ Fred Meyer, where the average wage is $19.69 per employee.

What’s more, Chisa said, association members pay an additional average of $4.65 in health and welfare and $1.52 for pension per hour for grocery clerks in Auburn to the above-average, base-wage rates.

“We don’t pay minimum wage in our stores,” Chisa said. “Our union contracts are above minimum wage, and they start with a wage scale that’s above what’s agreed to by employers and unions.”

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, Chisa said, association members in Auburn have provided the following benefits to their employees:

■ An average $2 per hour additional wage for several months, which some employers continue to pay;

■ Lump-sum cash benefits by some employers in addition to the extra per hour wage increase;

■ Offered all available hours to employees first before hiring outside help;

■ Offered short-notice, scheduling changes to accommodate for the loss of child care and school closures, allowed temporary transfers to stores closer to home, and worked to find available, reduced-cost child care for staff;

■ Offered 80 hours incremental paid leave with first-day coverage for any employee with a positive COVID-19 test or household positive test, or who answered yes to any COVID symptoms in the pre-shift screening, or who had been traced to anyone who was COVID positive;

■ Protection of health insurance and position/seniority while the employee was out, especially if it was for an extended time;

■ Additional leave for employees who may have a contra-indication or reaction to a COVID-19 vaccine.

Chisa said member grocers have also invested millions of dollars in PPE for their stores, including masks for employees, barriers at the checkout stands and in departments, cleaning supplies, distancing measures, occupancy checks and masks for customers.

They have also negotiated with law enforcement agencies to help with mask enforcement when customers refuse to wear one in the store, she said, or assault employees.

And they have offered free vaccines in stores, including walk-in vaccination at Safeway and Albertsons stores, Chisa said.

Chisa said the investment in safety measures has protected consumers and grocery workers, as the Washington State Department of Health has not identified member grocery stores as major vectors of virus transmission.

In fact, she said, DOH reports that grocery stores make up only 6% of the reported non-health care setting COVID-19 outbreak events and only 3.2% of all outbreak events in the state.

Catherine Holm, director of government affairs and legal counsel for the Washington Food Industry Association (WFIA), which represents independent, family-owned or independently-operated grocery stores like Saar’s Super Saver in Auburn, said, “mandates like hazard pay unfairly target one industry in the community,” and have a disproportionate impact on WFIA members, which, after all, she said, are not national companies sold on the stock market.

According to the most recent Washington State Department of Health data, Holm said, total grocery outbreaks in Washington state are at 5.8 percent. Other industries considered more dangerous are food services and restaurants, child care and pre-K, manufacturing, general retail, construction, and K-12 schools.

Through proactive safety measures taken by management, and the fact that it is uncommon for any customer to spend 10-15 minutes within 6 feet of an employee in a grocery store, grocery workers’ exposure to COVID-19 has been very low in Washington state, Holm said.

“Grocery employees are the backbone of their stores, and throughout the pandemic, they have faced significant regulatory hurdles and have been asked to do more than ever before,” Holm said.

Advocates of hazard pay, Holm continued, rely on faulty, out-of-state data to justify their positions — data that does not represent independent grocery stores, but only the big stores sold on the stock market. And the data used, she added, are not Washington-specific.

Karsten Wise, political and legislative organizer for UFCW 21, argued that the increase in stay-at-home orders during the pandemic has led to an unprecedented spike in supermarket sales — for some corporations as much as $1 billion in profits, he said. And given profits like that, he said, the industry can well afford this bump in pay for its front-line employees without closing their doors or being forced to raise prices.

“Supermarket chains’ claim that they would be forced to raise prices on consumers if they provide hazard pay is not true,” Wise said. “The large chains operating here are flush with cash and can easily afford it. One reason for the windfall profits over the past 12 months is that these firms had already raised consumer prices significantly.”

Council member James Jeyaraj asked Wise: Why all the activism directed at grocery stores in Auburn? Where did it come from?

Wise’s response was that the impetus had come from workers themselves.

“My understanding is that this discussion about hazard pay is borne out of some lobbying and organizing our members who work in Auburn have done,” said Wise. “They have gotten their co-workers to sign petitions asking for council to bring this up, and then, because there are folks on the council who are friendly to this proposed ordinance, that is how this issue ended up on the docket here.”

Jeyaraj noted, however, that the activity in Auburn started in March, which was after Councilman Larry Brown suggested it, not before.

Brown is president of the Washington State Labor Council.