June 11, 2007
Locked-In Workers Put at Risk
It’s been a part of retailing for about as long as there have been overnight crews. Stores lock-in workers to reduce goods going out the door, make sure employees are on-the-job where they belong and protect against unlawful entry by criminals.
A major issue with the practice, however, is that it creates a situation that may put employees’ health at risk. It could be something as simple as an employee with the flu being prevented from going home to bed or something as serious as a case over the weekend in Queens, NY, where five workers of Met Food Markets were trapped inside a store when a fire broke out.
According to a New York Daily News report, the workers retreated to the basement after the fire broke out and took turns running upstairs to bang on locked doors, security gates and the store’s bolted windows.
Brian Plunkett, who lives next door to the supermarket, said, “I heard banging on the door of the market and people yelling, ‘I’m gonna die!’ in Spanish.”
FDNY Battalion Chief Bradley Wall said firefighters just got there in time. “They didn’t have much longer to go. There was smoke pumping through the place. Time was critical for them,” he said.
The store’s owner Joseph Doleh said the workers had a key and should have been able to get out of the store. “We never lock the back door from the outside,” he said.
The employee with the key was the men’s boss, Jose Correa, who was not at the store when the fire broke out. Mr. Correa was charged with reckless endangerment.
“At least nobody got hurt. That’s the main thing,” said Mr. Doleh.
Chief Walls the situation at the Met Food Market was not unusual. “It happens more than you would imagine,” he said.
Discussion Question: How common is it for overnight crews to be locked inside stores? How do stores manage the risks associated with overnight work such as theft without putting workers at risk?
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In college as a night-stocker (night-stalker!), I was never locked in. No locked stockers. And today it’s still not a prevalent practice. Outsiders are locked out, of course, but that can’t be construed as night crews being locked in. How else could they take a cigarette break? There are many measures, overt and covert, available to and used by retailers to obviate the need for this arcane measure.
However, for brazen examples of employee-as-threat scenarios, one only has to look as far as sweatshop manufacturing (mostly garments and counterfeit fashion items) here in the U.S., which employ illegal aliens that they can’t afford to have roaming the streets unsupervised. So, they lock them in. South African diamond miners, on the other hand, allow their workers to exit at will – as long as they endure a thorough body cavity search. At U.S. mint operations, employees in certain sections ARE locked in and must undergo non-intrusive searches upon exit, but we can probably agree that precious metals are, on the whole, more valuable than a couple of pounds of steaks.
Whatever the financial or logistical justification may be, it’s hard to imagine a scenario that justifies treating workers in this manner. Rank and file employees, no matter which position they may be in, are the lifeblood of any enterprise. They should be treated with (at least) basic human respect, including the ability to enter and exit a building at will.
To be honest, I am not sure how often this practice goes on, but whatever the rate, hopefully this will serve as a wakeup call for those who are currently practicing it to stop immediately.
Locking employees in at night is nothing new, it’s been going on for years and not just in the retail industry. It’s common in restaurants, small manufacturing and a number of others. Large corporations used to do it quite often. I used to run an operation of a Fortune 100 company and did it all the time…20 years ago. Today the practice is more limited to smaller companies or franchise types.
Is the practice safe? Of course not but the argument is that even with emergency push-bar doors or security cameras you can still have theft, etc. I’ve seen plenty of video-tapes of people walking out with stolen goods and it hasn’t helped one bit in getting any of it returned.
Another issue which I’ve personally dealt with is the hostage situation where an employee leaves a building late at night (even though they’re instructed not to) only to be met by a gun-toting individual looking to rob the closed location. This is a significant problem since the overnight people do not have any access to cash and therefore wind up not being able to satisfy the intent of the individual.
All of this is compounded due to the inability to hire quality people who are willing to work the overnight shift. The end result is that you have people who probably don’t measure up to the standards you’d like to have working during the time of day when you have the least amount of protection in place.
The right answer is, of course, to leave them with a safe exit route and although that may ensure safety most of the time it won’t ensure 100% safety.
It’s shocking that such perverse work environments still exist in this country. Employees should not be jailed inside the workplace having to rely on kicking down doors to avoid being hurt in fires or with personal illness or injuries that occur inside locked doors that will not open. There are many civil ways to protect against theft. Lock-in’s are a lazy minded solution that should not be considered under most circumstances.
I worked my way through college working on night crews (usually 2 man) in supermarkets in the 60s. In those days our company trusted us with a key and there were no surveillance cameras around. The closest thing was 2 way glass behind the meat and produce cases! Once a quarter inventories would alert management to theft issues!
I spent many a night in the store by myself if the other guy was sick or in many cases if the business only required one man. I doubt you would see that today. Having been through that, I would never allow myself to be locked in and any employer who does that, particularly without exit doors, should be prosecuted.
The locked in policy is one that is not seen in many organizations today. For one thing, with the low employment rate employees do not need to put themselves in this unsafe position and maybe more important, not being respected and trusted.
There is one answer to this problem. Hire honest employees.
It has been proven that it takes three things to steal. They are Need, Opportunity, Attitude toward stealing (being able to justify that it is OK to steal. If someone wants to steal and even if you lock them in, they will find a way to do it. In most cases these employees will get away with stealing more because management will feel there is no way that they can steal so they will not watch them.
If you hire someone who either does not have a need, some people with a lot of money think they need to have more. (Look at Enron) or even if they have a need and the opportunity but think stealing in wrong they will not steal.
Just hire people with a attitude toward being honest.
It has been over 10 years, but I have worked and supervised overnight crews in the past. Every store that I ever worked in had thumb locks on the doors on the inside so technically, no one was ‘locked in’, but no one from the outside was allowed entry for safety reasons. In every instance the local fire marshall required that the thumb locks be installed if there was an overnight crew after regular business hours. There are ways to manager overnight workers and have them not be at any more risk than daytime workers.
This case seems more like a case of pure negligence. One guy has the key and he is not there. He should be prosecuted if it was truly his responsibility!
Locking employees in is fine with me so long as there are a couple of supervisors with keys. When done right it is a safe and harmless business practice that protects the employer’s assets.
Unfortunately the “lock in” was adopted by many owners due to the actions of employees. Things didn’t start this way. The “lock in” evolved as a means of trying to control theft and worker absence. Owners were not getting what they were paying for and searched for solution. The end result is something less than desirable, but let us remember that employees caused this situation to be put in place in the first place. A solution to this problem is for employees to exhibit honest behavior. Get to work on time, do what you are paid to do, don’t steal. Or maybe employers could institute a pay system that starts employees at $20 per hour and then reduces their pay based on historical theft/slacker loss. When the theft/slacker loss goes down then the employees “anticipated loss paycheck reduction” is decreased accordingly.
This sounds like a “sweat shop” mentality to me. Some can justify anything in the pursuit of higher profits but I believe this practice should be stopped and a better method developed. If the store can’t afford to have reliable night time supervision, then they shouldn’t be working at night. If these workers are so untrustworthy that they must be locked in, then how productive can they be? Can they be trusted to work even though they can’t be trusted to not steal? Seems like an oxymoron to me.
Nearly a century after the Triangle Factory holocaust, fire safety issues apparently still exist (and apologists offer the same response: it’s all the “fault” of dishonest employees). But this is ultimately a code (fire and/or workplace safety) issue: prosecute violators appropriately.
Stores with decent video surveillance networks don’t need to lock up their workers at night. By reviewing the DVR images the next day, remotely via the internet or on-site, management would see any misbehavior. The images could also be reviewed real-time, remotely or on-site. And it isn’t necessary to watch every minute of activity, since sampling often works just as well at much less cost. Veteran retailers occasionally “seeded” deliberate temptations, to see whether the staff would react honestly. None of these techniques are free, but none of these techniques endangers lives.
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In college as a night-stocker (night-stalker!), I was never locked in. No locked stockers. And today it’s still not a prevalent practice. Outsiders are locked out, of course, but that can’t be construed as night crews being locked in. How else could they take a cigarette break? There are many measures, overt and covert, available to and used by retailers to obviate the need for this arcane measure.
However, for brazen examples of employee-as-threat scenarios, one only has to look as far as sweatshop manufacturing (mostly garments and counterfeit fashion items) here in the U.S., which employ illegal aliens that they can’t afford to have roaming the streets unsupervised. So, they lock them in. South African diamond miners, on the other hand, allow their workers to exit at will – as long as they endure a thorough body cavity search. At U.S. mint operations, employees in certain sections ARE locked in and must undergo non-intrusive searches upon exit, but we can probably agree that precious metals are, on the whole, more valuable than a couple of pounds of steaks.
Whatever the financial or logistical justification may be, it’s hard to imagine a scenario that justifies treating workers in this manner. Rank and file employees, no matter which position they may be in, are the lifeblood of any enterprise. They should be treated with (at least) basic human respect, including the ability to enter and exit a building at will.
To be honest, I am not sure how often this practice goes on, but whatever the rate, hopefully this will serve as a wakeup call for those who are currently practicing it to stop immediately.
Locking employees in at night is nothing new, it’s been going on for years and not just in the retail industry. It’s common in restaurants, small manufacturing and a number of others. Large corporations used to do it quite often. I used to run an operation of a Fortune 100 company and did it all the time…20 years ago. Today the practice is more limited to smaller companies or franchise types.
Is the practice safe? Of course not but the argument is that even with emergency push-bar doors or security cameras you can still have theft, etc. I’ve seen plenty of video-tapes of people walking out with stolen goods and it hasn’t helped one bit in getting any of it returned.
Another issue which I’ve personally dealt with is the hostage situation where an employee leaves a building late at night (even though they’re instructed not to) only to be met by a gun-toting individual looking to rob the closed location. This is a significant problem since the overnight people do not have any access to cash and therefore wind up not being able to satisfy the intent of the individual.
All of this is compounded due to the inability to hire quality people who are willing to work the overnight shift. The end result is that you have people who probably don’t measure up to the standards you’d like to have working during the time of day when you have the least amount of protection in place.
The right answer is, of course, to leave them with a safe exit route and although that may ensure safety most of the time it won’t ensure 100% safety.
It’s shocking that such perverse work environments still exist in this country. Employees should not be jailed inside the workplace having to rely on kicking down doors to avoid being hurt in fires or with personal illness or injuries that occur inside locked doors that will not open. There are many civil ways to protect against theft. Lock-in’s are a lazy minded solution that should not be considered under most circumstances.
I worked my way through college working on night crews (usually 2 man) in supermarkets in the 60s. In those days our company trusted us with a key and there were no surveillance cameras around. The closest thing was 2 way glass behind the meat and produce cases! Once a quarter inventories would alert management to theft issues!
I spent many a night in the store by myself if the other guy was sick or in many cases if the business only required one man. I doubt you would see that today. Having been through that, I would never allow myself to be locked in and any employer who does that, particularly without exit doors, should be prosecuted.
The locked in policy is one that is not seen in many organizations today. For one thing, with the low employment rate employees do not need to put themselves in this unsafe position and maybe more important, not being respected and trusted.
There is one answer to this problem. Hire honest employees.
It has been proven that it takes three things to steal. They are Need, Opportunity, Attitude toward stealing (being able to justify that it is OK to steal. If someone wants to steal and even if you lock them in, they will find a way to do it. In most cases these employees will get away with stealing more because management will feel there is no way that they can steal so they will not watch them.
If you hire someone who either does not have a need, some people with a lot of money think they need to have more. (Look at Enron) or even if they have a need and the opportunity but think stealing in wrong they will not steal.
Just hire people with a attitude toward being honest.
It has been over 10 years, but I have worked and supervised overnight crews in the past. Every store that I ever worked in had thumb locks on the doors on the inside so technically, no one was ‘locked in’, but no one from the outside was allowed entry for safety reasons. In every instance the local fire marshall required that the thumb locks be installed if there was an overnight crew after regular business hours. There are ways to manager overnight workers and have them not be at any more risk than daytime workers.
This case seems more like a case of pure negligence. One guy has the key and he is not there. He should be prosecuted if it was truly his responsibility!
Locking employees in is fine with me so long as there are a couple of supervisors with keys. When done right it is a safe and harmless business practice that protects the employer’s assets.
Unfortunately the “lock in” was adopted by many owners due to the actions of employees. Things didn’t start this way. The “lock in” evolved as a means of trying to control theft and worker absence. Owners were not getting what they were paying for and searched for solution. The end result is something less than desirable, but let us remember that employees caused this situation to be put in place in the first place. A solution to this problem is for employees to exhibit honest behavior. Get to work on time, do what you are paid to do, don’t steal. Or maybe employers could institute a pay system that starts employees at $20 per hour and then reduces their pay based on historical theft/slacker loss. When the theft/slacker loss goes down then the employees “anticipated loss paycheck reduction” is decreased accordingly.
This sounds like a “sweat shop” mentality to me. Some can justify anything in the pursuit of higher profits but I believe this practice should be stopped and a better method developed. If the store can’t afford to have reliable night time supervision, then they shouldn’t be working at night. If these workers are so untrustworthy that they must be locked in, then how productive can they be? Can they be trusted to work even though they can’t be trusted to not steal? Seems like an oxymoron to me.
Nearly a century after the Triangle Factory holocaust, fire safety issues apparently still exist (and apologists offer the same response: it’s all the “fault” of dishonest employees). But this is ultimately a code (fire and/or workplace safety) issue: prosecute violators appropriately.
Stores with decent video surveillance networks don’t need to lock up their workers at night. By reviewing the DVR images the next day, remotely via the internet or on-site, management would see any misbehavior. The images could also be reviewed real-time, remotely or on-site. And it isn’t necessary to watch every minute of activity, since sampling often works just as well at much less cost. Veteran retailers occasionally “seeded” deliberate temptations, to see whether the staff would react honestly. None of these techniques are free, but none of these techniques endangers lives.