Siddharth Kavale
BENTONVILLE, Ark. (Reuters) – Retail giant Walmart (NYSE:) says it opposes placing panic buttons in stores, an item that New York City shoppers may soon find on shelves.
The New York State Senate passed a bill Friday that would require most major retailers, including Walmart, to place panic buttons in easily accessible areas of their stores or provide employees with wearable or cellphone-activated panic buttons. .
But Walmart’s chief corporate affairs officer told Reuters the panic buttons were likely to cause a false alarm.
“Eight out of ten times someone thinks something is going on, it’s not,” Dan Bartlett, Walmart’s executive vice president of corporate affairs, told Reuters.
Walmart hired a chief security officer “to oversee the overall physical safety” of its store workers, Bartlett said. Walmart’s new chief security officer was hired on April 12, a Walmart spokesperson said.
Bartlett said it would be impractical for Walmart to place panic buttons in every store. The nation’s largest retailer, Walmart, operates 4,700 stores, including 98 in New York state.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul has 10 days to sign the bill or veto it. If she doesn’t take action within 10 days, the Retail Worker Safety Act will automatically become state law.
The legislation would also require most retailers with 10 or more employees to provide violence prevention and safety training to their employees.
Walmart employees are not unionized. However, one major retail trade union, the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union,
(RWDSU), which represents more than 100,000 workers across the United States, is pushing for the bill to become law in New York.
At Walmart’s annual meeting at its headquarters in Bentonville, Arkansas, this week, some Walmart store workers who own Walmart stock put forward their own safety-related proposal to Walmart shareholders. The proposal would require Walmart to conduct an independent review of its workplace safety and anti-violence policies and practices. It was rejected by a shareholder vote.