Written by Siddharth Kavali
BENTONVILLE, Arkansas (Reuters) – Retail giant Walmart Inc (NYSE:) said it is against placing panic buttons in stores – a move the New York Legislature wants to force under a new law aimed at keeping retail workers safe.
On Friday, the New York State Senate passed legislation that would require most major retail chains, including Walmart, to place panic buttons in their New York stores where employees can easily access them or provide employees with a wearable or cellphone-activated panic button. Buttons that call emergency services.
The law, which is a response to growing threats to warehouse employees from thefts and violence, has already passed the state Assembly and now goes to Gov. Kathy Hochul for her signature. Retail groups criticized the law in part because installing panic buttons would be expensive.
Walmart's chief corporate affairs officer told Reuters that the company opposes the idea of a panic button because it believes there are likely to be too many false alarms.
“Eight out of ten times someone thinks something is going on, in reality there is nothing,” Dan Bartlett, Walmart's executive vice president of corporate affairs, told Reuters on Friday.
Walmart said it hired its first chief safety officer in April to evaluate the safety of store workers. The nation's largest retailer, Walmart operates 4,700 stores, including 98 in New York State.
The panic button provision of New York law will take effect in 2027 for retailers with more than 500 employees nationwide.
The legislation would also require most retailers with 10 or more employees to provide violence prevention and safety training to their employees.
While Walmart is not a union organization, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, which represents more than 100,000 American workers, pushed for the bill to become law in New York.
A group of retail industry lobbyists including the National Retail Federation and the New York State Food Industry Alliance opposed it.
“The costly mandates proposed in the bill — including the installation of panic buttons — will do little, if anything, to address offenders who enter stores with the intention of engaging in illegal activity such as shoplifting and assault,” the group wrote in a May 28 statement. . letter.
They also supported the New York Police Department's Office of Community Affairs statement opposing panic buttons. A New York City Council committee said phone calls to 911 in 2019 are better because they provide responders with vital information that panic buttons don't.
“We stand by the message and have concerns about the imposition of panic buttons,” Michael Durant, CEO of the New York State Food Industry Alliance, told Reuters on Saturday.
At Walmart's annual meeting in Bentonville, Arkansas, this week, shareholders voted down a motion from Walmart store employee shareholders who wanted Walmart to conduct an independent review of its policies and practices on workplace safety and violence.