Do grocery, restaurant, Instacart and Amazon workers deserve hazard pay amid COVID-19 concerns?

By Jacqueline Molik Ghosen

Jerry M. Newman, PhD
SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus
University at Buffalo School of Management
jmnewman@buffalo.edu

Newman is a nationally recognized expert on setting wages and co-author of Compensation, the leading book on that topic for more than 30 years. In addition, he worked undercover at seven fast food restaurants while writing My Secret Life on the McJob: Lessons in Leadership Guaranteed to Supersize any Management Style (McGraw-Hill, 2007). 

According to Newman, workers are united with a more powerful motivation than they have had in the past century: survival.

“Not since coal miners unionized for survival against black lung disease has there been a better motivation for workers to unite,” he says. “Fast food and other low wage jobs are tough enough without the specter of possible illness and death.”

Professor Newman is available for interviews. The best way to reach him is through Jacqueline Ghosen, assistant dean and director of communications, University at Buffalo School of Management, ghosen@buffalo.edu, at 716-645-2833 or 716-479-2890.