Les conditions de travail des caissiers et caissières de la grande distribution pendant la crise du coronavirus - analyse dans la région liégeoise.

Abstract

At the end of 2019, a novel strain of coronavirus (the “Covid-19” or the “Virus”) surfaced in Wuhan, China. It only took a few weeks for Covid-19 to spread throughout the world. In order to limit the spread of the Virus and to prevent the hospitals from being overwhelmed, the Belgian government has imposed a nationwide lockdown. For the majority of the population, this lockdown resulted in either a restriction to work, or in the obligation to work remotely. But some workers, considered as essential, had to work as normal and remained, in contact with customers , and, potentially, the Covid 19. The health care workers are the most recognized among these essential workers. They have already been the subject of many studies demonstrating how Covid-19 psychologically affected them. On the other hand, only a limited number of studies have been conducted on the impact of the Virus on workers in retail stores , in particular on the cashiers. The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of the Covid-19 on the working conditions of the cashiers. To achieve this, we will start by defining what the working conditions are. Then, we will review what has already been said about the impact of the Virus on other essential workers. We will finally see, through a qualitative approach, that theCovid-19 had a negative impact on cashiers. We will also highlight that some human and organizational factors had an impact on how they felt through this period. Among these factors, we could mention the age, gender, family situation, store size or the presence of a security guard. The results of this study obviously call for confirmation by larger scale quantitative studies