‘Every Day Is Frightening’: Working For Walmart Amid Covid-19 Lockdowns
From the time he was in his early teens, David McNew worked at a grocery store in the rural town of Renton, Washington. He worked there for six years before moving to the San Francisco Bay Area.
On his last night at the store, he walked outside because it was closing. McNew had not been feeling well and, in his last shift, he had eaten lunch right before he went home to sleep. As he walked over to the store, he passed the parking lot and was approached by a man with a clipboard looking for someone to drive him to work.
“I’m here to pick you up,” the man said. “You’re going to pick me up?”
McNew, who is from Oklahoma, said he didn’t understand the man’s accent but he decided to let him take him to work. The man asked for McNew’s name and where he lived. McNew told the man they shared a zip code.
“No, no, that’s okay. You can call me John,” said the man. “I have a lot of work to do here.”
McNew said he was confused by the man’s strange request. He and his wife, who is originally from Oklahoma, lived across the street from the grocery store. He wanted to drive John home.
“He just stopped in front of me,” McNew said of the time they pulled into his driveway. The next thing he remembers is waking up in the back seat of a car, and waking up handcuffed and blindfolded.
“I was really scared,” he said. “I knew it was going to be a long night.”
The man driving the car was a Walmart security guard whom McNew trusted. The man told McNew he had a call with the general manager of the store.
“And he said I needed to come work for him,” said McNew. “I said ‘Ohh, okay, are you with Walmart, Walmart?”
Walmart has since confirmed the man was a security guard with the company who was asked to take
