‘Tate Reeves isn’t my boss.’ Coast workers speak out on end of MS mask mandate
The end of the state mask mandate has left some of Mississippi’s essential workers, including grocery store and retail employees, in the awkward position of having to enforce their company’s rules against angry customers demanding to go mask-free.
Jesse Mejia, a manager at American Eagle in Biloxi’s Edgewater Mall, spends part of his shift standing outside the store, enforcing the company’s rule that all shoppers and employees wear a mask. He has a line ready when maskless customers tell him the mandate has been lifted.
“I just tell them, ‘Tate Reeves isn’t my boss,’” he said.
Workers like Mejia have helped ensure people have had access to groceries, medical supplies and some semblance of normalcy even during the worst of the pandemic.
Since Gov. Tate Reeves allowed his executive order mandating masks in public places in most Mississippi counties to expire on March 3, their jobs now increasingly include asking customers to put on a mask, or interacting with people not following current CDC guidance, sometimes at close distances.
Many of these workers are people of color. Black Americans are over-represented among front-line workers in industries like grocery and drug stores, child care, building cleaning and trucking. Black and Hispanic Americans are also over-represented among retail workers.
Advocates say these workers will be at higher risk thanks to the end of the mask mandate. Essential workers are not currently eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine in Mississippi unless they fall into another eligibility category, such as being 50 or older or having a particular health condition.
Other states that have lifted their mask mandates include Iowa, Montana, North Dakota and Texas.
The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, which represents some grocery workers in Mississippi, has long called for a national mask mandate. Last week, the union issued a press release highlighting comments by Dr. Anthony Fauci during a town hall with UFCW members.
“When you pull back on measures of public health, invariably you’ve seen a surge back up,” Fauci said of Texas and Mississippi ending their mask mandates. “So, we really don’t want to claim premature victory.”
Masks at Edgewater Mall
At Edgewater Mall on Monday, the door signs reminding visitors of the governor’s mask mandate had been taken down.
But most shoppers and employees were still wearing masks.
“Every so often, groups of people come in without their masks, but they’re few and far between,” said Sarah Smith, 37, the boutique team leader at Francesca’s.
Smith said the company was still requiring employees to wear a mask, which she now thinks of as just part of getting dressed for the work day. The store also sells flower-print masks and 98-cent bottles of hand sanitizer.
At Traditional Jewelry, gemologist Carole Williams said she hadn’t known what to expect when she came to work after the mandate expired. But she estimated that “90% of the people shopping” this past weekend were wearing masks.
Breonni Johnson, a sales associate at locally owned boutique Marisol’s, said she didn’t think the end of the mandate had made much of a difference either way.
“I didn’t really feel any type of way [when the mandate ended] because it wasn’t really enforced in the mall anyway,” she said.
Some workers pleased to take off their masks
Louis Phillips, 17, was happily mask free as he scrolled through his phone while waiting for customers at the Zoofari kiosk, where shoppers can rent motorized stuffed animals for their kids to drive around the mall.
“I like people having their own opinion and the freedom to do what you want,” he said.
Phillips said he still keeps a mask handy in case an older person comes to ask him a question, or if a customer asks him to wear one. But he feels that as a young and healthy person, he doesn’t have much to worry about from COVID-19.
At the Custom T-shirts kiosk next to the Auntie Anne’s, Khalid Mohamed, 31, said he had seen fewer people wearing masks this week.
“Including me,” he said. “I wear it when I go in restaurant, but when I’m just sitting here by myself, I don’t. It’s hard breathing.”
Before the mandate expired, he wore a mask everywhere except his car and home. Now, he’s more relaxed.
Strict requirements at Victoria’s Secret, American Eagle
A few national chain stores in the mall have especially strict mask requirements. At Victoria’s Secret and American Eagle, an employee is designated to stand at a station outside the store at all times, letting customers know that they must wear a mask (covering mouth and nose) to enter the store.
At American Eagle, there are also places marked for customers to line up and wait if the store is already at capacity. Mejia said it’s called the “dream maker zone,” because store employees are supposed to use the time to figure out how to make the waiting customers’ shopping dreams come true.
Mejia said that since the mandate expired last week, he has noticed many more shoppers in the mall without a mask on. He also feels people now get angrier if he has to ask them to put on a mask.
“After the mandate was lifted, you have a lot more people thinking the governor’s word is the Bible,” he said. “It’s not.”
Mejia, 19, said that his parents are older, and his sister and her husband have health conditions. He chooses to wear a mask not so much because he worries about getting sick himself, but because he wants to protect his family.
But on the job, it’s required anyway, and so is asking customers to put on masks. The interactions don’t always go well.
“I myself have been put on video, cussed out, asked for my district manager’s number,” he said. “It doesn’t faze us anymore. It’s a common occurrence.”
Down the hall at Marisol’s, Johnson has heard customers complain about how they were refused entry to American Eagle.
“’This mask stuff is so stupid,’” she recalled hearing.
She keeps her mask on, per her employer’s policy and doesn’t say anything; asking customers to put on a mask seems more trouble than it’s worth.
Her cousin died from COVID-19 early in the pandemic. The loss was especially hard for her dad, she said. He always makes sure she’s wearing a mask.
“He used to worry about it,” she said of her going to work at the mall. “But I need money, so.”
