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Season 5, Episode 69

Author discusses book about grocery workers during the Pandemic

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America's Work Force Union Podcast AWF Life on the Grocery Line Adam Kaat

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Guest Name:

Adam Kaat

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AdamKaat.com 

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Adam Kaat, author of Life on the Grocery Line: A Frontline Experience in a Global Pandemic, joined America’s Work Force Union Podcast to discuss his book. Kaat discussed the experiences he wrote about and the poor treatment of grocery and retail workers throughout the pandemic.

Before the pandemic, Kaat said he had bounced around in account service positions in the corporate world. After having a bad experience at a new job, Kaat took a break from the corporate world to try and pursue a life as an author. He was forced to put that on hold to pick up a job at a local high-end grocery store where he would work in the morning and write in the afternoon. Shortly after beginning the new endeavor, the pandemic started, and Kaat took his experiences at the grocery store throughout the pandemic and turned them into his book.

He took a deep dive into the poor treatment of the workers at his grocery store. Kaat wrote about the health risks and stresses. Throughout the pandemic, there were conversations about unionizing and receiving protections, but nothing was formalized during Kaat’s time there. With each day creating new health risks and more hazards for workers, union protection could have improved the standard treatment of workers, he said.

Many union leaders now use Kaat’s book to showcase the poor workplace environments that grocery and retail workers face daily. Kaat shared how hard it was to be treated poorly by shoppers while simultaneously being told they were heroes and essential workers. He hopes his book provided insights into the problems faced by grocery and retail workers and why they deserve union protections, Kaat said.

Listen to the show above to hear more from Kaat, then get a copy of his book here

America’s Work Force is the only daily labor podcast in the US and has been on the air since 1993, supplying listeners with useful, relevant input into their daily lives through fact-finding features, in-depth interviews, informative news segments and practical consumer reports. America’s Work Force is committed to providing an accessible venue in which America's workers and their families can hear discussion on important, relevant topics such as employment, healthcare, legislative action, labor-management relations, corporate practices, finances, local and national politics, consumer reports and labor issues.

America’s Work Force Union Podcast is brought to you in part by our sponsors: AFL-CIO, American Federation of Government Employees, American Federation of Musicians Local 4, American Alliance for Manufacturing, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Columbus/Central Ohio Building and Construction Trades Council, Communication Workers of America, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers, International Association of Heat and Frost Insulators and Allied Workers Local 50, International Brotherhood of Teamsters, International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, International Union of Bricklayers and Allied Crafts, International Union of Painters and Allied Trades District Council 6, Ironworkers Great Lakes District Council, The Labor Citizen newspaper, Laborers International Union of The National Labor Office of Blue Cross and Blue Shield, North America, North Coast Area Labor Federation, Ohio Federation of Teachers, Survey and Ballot Systems, United Labor Agency, United Steelworkers.

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