Monthly Archives: June 2021

On June 8, the UFCW applauded California leaders on the Oxnard City Council for becoming the first city in the nation to utilize American Rescue Plan funds to provide COVID premium pay to essential workers. The UFCW called on governors and local leaders in all 50 states to enact similar measures for frontline workers.

UFCW Local 770 and its members played a leading role in advocating for this action by the Oxnard City Council to provide the COVID premium pay these workers have earned and deserve. UFCW Local 770 held meetings with the Oxnard City Council, participated in public comment sessions, and wrote a letter in partnership with the Central Coast Labor Council calling for this action.

The Oxnard City Council will do the following to help essential workers:

• Allocate $2.5 million of the city’s $59 million from its American Rescue Plan funds on essential worker COVID premium pay for retail grocery and drug store workers.
• Provide $2.5 million of COVID premium pay for retail grocery and drug store workers. Both full- time and part-time workers qualify. 
• Provide a one-time payout to workers who qualify. Current estimates indicate that roughly 2,000 essential workers in Oxnard would be eligible for the COVID premium pay, including about 450 Oxnard essential workers represented by UFCW Local 770.
• The Oxnard City Council measure would give anyone who worked at least three months in a grocery store or pharmacy during the first 12 months of the coronavirus pandemic a $1,000 bonus.

“Essential workers in grocery stores and pharmacies have bravely put their health at risk daily throughout the pandemic to ensure our families have the food, essential supplies, and vaccine access we need,” said UFCW International President Marc Perrone in a statement. “Oxnard is making history as the first city in the nation to use American Rescue Plan funds to provide these essential workers with the COVID premium pay they have earned and deserve. The UFCW is urging all governors and local leaders in all 50 states to follow Oxnard’s lead by ensuring this state pandemic aid is used to provide COVID premium pay and recognize the extraordinary sacrifices made by those on the front lines.”

“Essential food and drug retail employees are the lifeline that sustained our communities and kept us afloat during the Covid pandemic,” said UFCW Local 770 President John Grant. “Frontline workers continue to make sure our communities have the food, essential supplies, medications, and lifesaving vaccines needed. UFCW 770 members worked tirelessly with the Oxnard City Council to achieve this Gratitude Pay for union and non-union workers alike. We commend the City of Oxnard for doing the right thing and urge other cities to follow suit by allocating their funds from the American Rescue Plan to essential worker COVID premium pay.”

“I think this is awesome what the City Council of Oxnard is doing for the grocery workers, the frontline workers, and everybody who has been risking their lives every day to go to work,” said UFCW Local 770 member and Vons grocery worker Lucy Gilbertson. “This shows us gratitude at a time when it feels like we’ve been forgotten. Grocery workers have been through so much this past year and I hope more cities provide this pay to these workers still facing risks as the pandemic continues.”

On June 10, the UFCW condemned the move by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to exclude frontline grocery and meatpacking workers from its long-delayed Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID workplace safety. As a leading national voice in the push for these new pandemic worker safety rules, our union called on OSHA to reverse course and include the millions of American frontline food workers who put their health at risk every day during the pandemic and continue to face virus risks as this health crisis continues.

The UFCW was one of the first groups to call for an OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard in testimony to Congress at House and Senate hearings last year. Our union also called on governors to enforce CDC workplace safety guidelines as COVID outbreaks ripped through meatpacking plants and grocery stores across the country. 

“Today’s new COVID workplace safety standard from OSHA represents a broken promise to the millions of American workers in grocery stores and meatpacking plants who have gotten sick and died on the frontlines of this pandemic,” said UFCW International President Marc Perrone in a statement. “Vaccinations are helping us take control of this pandemic, but the danger for these essential workers is far from over. Thousands of frontline food workers are still at risk of infection.”

“While the OSHA Emergency Temporary Standard provides a number of important safety rules for health care, nursing home, and home health care workers represented by the UFCW, it fails to protect many other frontline workers our union represents,” Perrone said. “The current COVID safety guidelines in place are unenforceable and leave millions of essential food, meatpacking and processing, retail, and pharmacy workers to fend for themselves as they face hundreds of potentially unvaccinated people every day. OSHA had a responsibility to issue a strong Emergency Temporary Standard that creates clear workplace safety rules for all employers to follow as the pandemic continues. What was released by the administration completely ignores the health threat grocery and meatpacking workers are still confronting as they bravely serve our communities and keep our food supply secure.” 

“The reality is that voluntary guidelines are not enough on COVID safety,” Perrone added. “OSHA has a responsibility to protect all of America’s frontline workers and to fully enforce CDC guidelines as well as requirements in a new Emergency Temporary Standard on COVID for all employers as promised and urgently needed. This is a slap in the face to the millions of American frontline workers and their families who have been infected and killed by this deadly virus. As America’s largest union for grocery and meatpacking workers on the front lines, the UFCW will be pushing OSHA to immediately increase workplace safety inspections in grocery stores, meatpacking plants, and health care facilities to make sure workers are kept safe and all employers are held accountable for protecting them on the job. Now, more than ever, we need to stand with America’s essential workers.”