Tag Archives: Whole Foods

Do Employees’ Forced Smiles At Stores Cause Mental Distress?

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Most Nebraskans and Iowans can probably sing a jingle from a regional grocery chain that promises “a helpful smile in every aisle.” But helpful smiles may have a hidden cost for employees.

A summary of 95 medical studies showed that forced cheerfulness by employees lead to psychosomatic issues like trouble sleeping, headaches and chest pain as well as decreased job satisfaction. This so-called emotional labor has also been linked to aggression in the workplace.

Retail and service industry employees are usually required to be cheerful to encourage customers to return. These pressures are likely becoming more acute as certain sectors of retail employment have declined and online giant – and burgeoning monopoly – Amazon has barged into the grocery business with their acquisition of Whole Foods.

Unfortunately, U.S. employment laws are not equipped to deal with the day-to-day mental strains placed on retail workers. Workers compensation laws generally do not compensate purely mental injuries. Workplace bullying or harassment is only legally actionable if the harassment is severe or pervasive and motivated by an unlawful factor like race, religion, nationality, sex, disability, etc. 

But employees have the power to work together, even if they aren’t in a union, to address these conditions through protected concerted activity under the National Labor Relations Act. Recently a group of employees at a Target in rural Virginia banded together to help fire a manager who had been sexually harassing employees. Granted sexual harassment may be different than forcing an employee to be cheerful when dealing with the public, but by working together employees can address unreasonable rules and requirements by an employer.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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