Safeway Clerks Say Service-With-Smile Rule Gives Some Wrong Idea

MARTINEZ, Calif. - Safeway's "superior customer service" program requires all employees to smile, greet and make eye contact with every customer who walks in.

Many customers say they shop at Safeway because they're treated well.

"They always offer to help with my groceries. They know exactly where everything is," said Julianne George, a music teacher who shops at a Safeway in Martinez. "They're concerned that you have the best possible shopping experience."

But that experience has turned into a nightmare for some workers at the Pleasanton, Calif.-based grocery store chain.

Richelle Roberts, a produce clerk at a Lafayette, Calif., store, said she's propositioned daily by men who mistake her company-mandated friendliness as flirtatiousness.

"This never used to happen to me until I had to open the door," she said. "It just takes away our rights. A woman knows where and when not to open that door for certain men."

A produce worker at a Pleasant Hill, Calif., store said she has hidden in a back room to avoid customers who have repeatedly propositioned her and followed her to her car.

Barbara Carpenter, president of United Food and Commercial Workers' Local 1179, said, "The union wants a non-hostile environment and `superior customer service,' as it stands today, jeopardizes the safety of our members."

Oakland attorney Matthew Ross filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board in May. "They've got battalions of MBAs who are coming up with these policies at the corporate fort in Pleasanton who don't take into account the real-life implications," he said.

Safeway spokeswoman Debra Lambert said the experience of the California women is unusual and that perhaps store managers need to better train workers to deal with unruly customers.

"Sometimes customers get out of line," she said. "We don't see it as a direct result of our initiative."