Do the freezer stockers get paid more for having to work in the freezers or are they paid the same as a shelf stocker? Also, what are their in freezer/ out of freezer breaks like- the same as regular workers or different so they can warm up periodically? And one produce stocker question- do produce workers have to wear hair coverings, nets or hats, like other food prep workers?
I don’t know about the freezer questions, but (in Wisconsin, specifically in my area) the only people that need to wear gloves and hair coverings are people that are handling ready to eat food. That is, food that you would typically eat without cleaning. Since it’s expected that you will wash produce before eating it, no special precautions are taken to prevent contamination (physical or otherwise) to the outside of the fruit.
My guess is this is going to vary from store to store.
Where I worked, people were stockers, period. You stocked what needed to be stocked, it didn’t matter what area it was. The only exception being the meat and produce sections. They had their own stockers.
All of the stockers got started out at the same wage. (Whatever minimum wage was back in the late 90s.) They got the same brakes as well. 1 15 minute break per two hours worked, 1 30 minute lunch per 4 hours worked.
The folks who worked in produce didn’t wear anything over their hair. The folks who packaged the meat products did though.
To clarify the produce question: Produce workers in the prep area, preparing salads, chopping fruit, and performing other tasks related to producing ready-to-eat foods will wear hair coverings. Produce workers who are simply putting product onto the sales floor will not.
I work the overnight shift stocking frozen stuff for Wallyworld, in a store in the Upper Midwest. Frozen & Dairy stockers make 15 cents an hour more than regular stockers. I get the same breaks as everyone else - 2 15 minute ones & a 30 minute (we have an option to take an hour if we want to, and stay later) lunch.
No extra breaks to warm up, but it really isn’t necessary. I rarely have to be in the freezer for more than 20 minutes at a time, and Walmart provides pretty good coats & gloves. At least when the bakery workers haven’t hoarded them all. (They have their own freezer, but only have one or two guys that actually go into the freezer - they don’t need a half dozen pairs of gloves.) And putting the freight out on the floor is only slight colder than the rest of the store.
My experience in a smaller store was that stockers were stockers, though some shifts were nominally dairy and others were nominally dry-goods (which included the freezer). No formal breaks for freezer work, but supervisors understood if someone needed to get out of the freezer for a little while (actually, I think stocking the freezer never took that long, but you could be in the refrigerator for a while).