I am one of many workers that worked at the Hampton Target store location who had the unfortunate experience of enduring a rat and mice infestation that lasted more than a year during the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2021. Despite the added pressures and risks from the infestation and the pandemic, there was no added compensation for workers of our store. This only came to public attention when a video of two rats in the dog food section was broadcast on local news. 

The health implications of working in such conditions are immense. According to the Center for Disease Control, rats can spread over 35 diseases which can be directly or indirectly transmitted to humans (CDC, 2021). Additionally, the Covid-19 pandemic put unimaginable stress on retail workers who were deemed essential, with an average of 3 exposure cases per month in the industry (OSHA, 2021).

We believe that it is only fair that Target recognizes the difficulty of our situation and provides hazard pay to those of us who continued to work under these hazardous conditions. Not only does this help acknowledge our efforts, it also reinforces their commitment to prioritizing worker safety. We hence urge you to sign this petition to mandate Target to provide hazard pay to its workers.

In addition, there are multiple accounts from each worker, including at least one getting both pooped and peed on, eyewitness of a rat jumping out of a dog food bag at a guest, eye witness of a rat jumping out of the produce at a child, dog beds torn into and used by mice in the stock room, rats seen on the rafters in the stock room, multiple stockers told to clean pee off the tops of cans and even a pringles can, at least one told that smoke bombing the store and cleaning the store out of inventory would take the store too long to get back online. When the grocery portion was blocked off by a floor to ceiling curtain, only the produce portion was trashed. The chip isle stayed stocked, many chip bags still having holes. Multiple items in the back stockrooms had holes and spilled when we tried to collect the items for orders. Only after it went viral on local news, they called in a team of trappers. At least 3 dead rats lay in snap traps along the packing wall for hours while we had to work around them. I think it was the exact same team that sealed the cracks in the walls in the stock room. As the year got warmer, you could smell the decaying bodies behind down stock room isle 4, where the cake supplies were. One worker on her first day was told to bang on the stockroom isles before she went down them to give the rats a chance to scatter. I will add more as I collect more recounts of other workers from that time. I luckily transferred out to another store after about a year there, and now not currently with Target.