A Vancouver Island-based grocery chain has become the first of its kind to make pandemic pay permanent across all of its locations.
Quality Foods announced after their annual general meeting on Thursday night that the $2/hr top-up for employees was here to stay.
The company implemented the pay top-up in February of 2020, with multiple extensions due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The latest extension was due to end this weekend, before the decision was made to make it permanent.
The permanent pay increase will span across all of the grocer’s locations, and will cover nearly all of the Quality Foods’ nearly 1,200 workers.
In a statement, Quality Food’s president says store employees have earned the permanent raise.
“This year being in a lot of stress and anxiety working in a store and with the pandemic raging we felt the best decision now was not the time to pull that back. Now’s the time to lock it in and make it permanent so we have a lot of happy people today,” said Noel Hayward, president of Quality Foods.
Quality Foods currently has 13 locations on the island, with two in the Greater Victoria area, in View Royal and Langford.
