Lowe's employees are begging for stores to be closed, or at least made safer.

Several people I care about work at Lowe’s Home Improvement stores. These stores are classified as providing essential services, it seems. So the stores are still open. I am worried. A lot of the employees are older people. The stores hire a lot of young people (many are students) for the busy summer season, but at this time of year a large proportion of the folks on the floor are over 60. I looked at Lowe’s Facebook page, to see if others are commenting on this. They sure are.

There are many many comments, by employees and their spouses, asking Lowe’s to do more. To supply wipes and hand cleaner. To limit the number of shoppers allowed in the store at a time. To institute 6-foot distances in lines, and sterilize keypads, cart handles, etc. Or just to close stores. They report what I am hearing as well, that the stores are being visited by quite a lot of people who are bored and frustrated and just want somewhere to go. People come in wanting to have a long chat with an associate about a project they are thinking about for later on. It’s true that big home-improvement stores provide some essential goods and services — I am sure there are things that could go wrong in my house that would mean I would really need to be able to buy something they sell (plumbing, electrical, refrigeration...). But surely this function could be filled by online orders for curbside pickup. Providing entertainment (up close and personal) for people who are unhappy in isolation is not part of their essential services.

It is sad to see how these many posts (with dozens of people adding their voices to each) are completely ignored by whoever is handling the social media account, while the occasional post by a customer complaining about a late delivery or the like is responded to right away. 

Here are just a few of the comments I saw:

 All employees are at risk in these busy stores with all their kids out. There is NOTHING emergency related to buy in here. Let's think about workers for once.
We have ZERO LYSOL and stuff for our hands since it was all purchased. CLOSE THE STORES.

I feel like we don't even have any cleaning supplies for employees! We are all sharing one bottle of hand sanitizer and our wipes for the store are going fast. I live in a retirement town. and we still have so many people coming in.

Cali has a state wide shut down and our CEO STILL HAS NOT allowed us to shorten hours or close business per our governors request

IVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR A WEEK😂. We are only an emergency supply store in case of NATURAL DISASTER😂. We have nothing essential in this time. We are out of TP, sanitizer and Lysol.
People don’t come in to buy things they need anyway. They’re coming in to buy paint, mulch and complain about stuff.

I know of several employees who are being placed in high risk situations to catch this illness with no precautionary measures being taken by store management. These employees especially those on the delivery team are very worried they are being put at risk to catch this illness but are terrified to speak out to management over fear of losing their jobs.

If Lowes truly cared about the well being of it's employees and customers they would stop all in home deliveries immediately. I have two family members in my household on the delivery team. You are putting them at risk, my family at risk and not to mention the customers they are delivering to. They go into 8-10 homes a day and travel in a 50 mile radius. This is how community spread happens.

I am a concerned wife of a delivery driver for the company. Why are they being sent out into people's homes during this crisis? This increases the potential for community spread and is very concerning from a family standpoint. They arent given masks or sanitizer, it increases their risk and others everyday they keep having to go out to deliver. Is anyone taking this into consideration?

Lowe's is putting my daugh at risk. She is a checkout person. They offer NO wipes, gloves, masks. They're supply of these items for sale only. And, they are out of them.

The way their checkouts are set up customers are less than 2 feet away from them.

Who is going to stand up for checkout people all over the country?

What do you want your delivery people to do when they show up at a house where customers are obviously coughing with an illness?

I am writing wanting to know WHY your store in Saratoga Springs, NY has NO Hand Sanitizer or NO Hand Sanitizer Wipes for the employees to use at their stations. You have many senior citizens that work there and it’s important to take care of them first. They shouldn’t even be allowed to work, either, but I’m sure they do cause they need the income and it’s the Lowe’s company that needs to give them time off WITH pay.

They are adjusting their policies day by day, as everybody is. And allowing some paid sick leave, That’s great. But the thing is, this illness is being spread by people who have no symptoms yet. Maybe by many people who will never have noticeable symptoms. Some employees are reporting that they can get paid leave if they have a doctor’s note certifying that they have a pre-existing risk factor. But as several commenters point out, being over 60 is a risk factor, but most doctors won’t write you a note for that! 

We do have the ability to request two weeks off if we are exposed to someone with coronavirus, but a couple of employees have gone that route and their requests were denied," one employee said. They added that a coworker with a quarantined family member had their emergency paid-time-off request denied.

 I tried to call but it’s takes 2 to 3 hrs to get answered and when I did get an answer they didn’t know what to do so I’m not going to work and I’m 73 and should not need a doctors note because of my age group this is rediculous

 I don’t understand WHY a person 70+ has to get a doctor’s note to get paid leave during this crisis where people 65+ are at a very high risk. They should be told to go home, with pay, immediately! These people are working at this age because they need the income.

There are hundreds of these comments. I will give the last word to a commenter:

Lowe's Home Improvement you are not paying attention.