Local 400 member Sally Dickerson was recently inducted into the Maryland Food Industry Hall of Fame in honor of her 55 years of service as a Safeway cashier. When she retired in September 2010 at the age of 87, she was the most senior associate among all of Safeway’s 180,000 employees.
This was not Dickerson’s first award — in 2008, the Maryland General Assembly issued a proclamation honoring her for her extraordinary service, and she received WJLA-TV’s Tribute to Working Women Award in 2010.
Dickerson is as proud of her Local 400 membership as she is of her unparalleled record as a Safeway employee. “I’ve been a member for all these years,” she said, “and our union has been very good to me.”
In its induction, the Maryland Food Industry Hall of Fame wrote, “Her remarkable career at Safeway was punctuated by awards and recognition by company management. She was an inspiration to colleagues with her punctuality, dependability and work ethic. But, most importantly, she was loved and appreci-
ated by her legion of loyal customers who frequently waited in longer lines at her checkstand just to see her. Through her very last day at work, she had an incredible energy level and could out-work people half her age.”
Dickerson joined Safeway in 1955, working first at stores in Wheaton and Rockville before settling in as a mainstay at the Kensington store from the day it opened in 1964 until it closed in 2006 to make room for a new store. From 2006 until 2010, she worked at the Hillandale store, where she worked full-time, eight hours a day, until her final shift.