Health & Safety Archives - For Local Unions

On Dec. 10, the UFCW sent a letter to CEOs of top U.S. retail and grocery companies, calling for immediate action to protect workers and customers amid the spread of the COVID-19 Omicron variant.

The letter was sent directly to 63 retail and grocery CEOs, including Andy Jassy (Amazon), Doug McMillon (Walmart), Rodney McMullen (Kroger), John Mackey (Whole Foods), Karen Lynch (CVS), Brian Cornell (Target), Corie Barry (Best Buy), Jeffrey Gennette (Macy’s), and many others. In the letter, UFCW International President Marc Perrone urged CEOs to address the growing challenges essential workers face by implementing five key measures as follows:

• Promote Mask Wearing: To reduce transmissibility, promote mask wearing for all customers at all locations.

• Provide Free Personal Protective Equipment to All Retail Workers: To help protect workers, free access to personal protective equipment like masks and hand sanitizer must be provided while on the job.

• Re-establish Social Distancing: Social distancing rules have been relaxed despite ongoing COVID risks. To protect workers, social distancing must be encouraged in all stores.

• Support Vaccination/Boosters for Workers: Government mandates alone are not enough and more must be done to support vaccination of retail and grocery workers. Onsite vaccine clinics and paid sick leave should be provided to all workers to reduce barriers.

• Implement Inflation Wage Protection: Exploding spikes in food prices is an added burden to many essential workers – especially those with families. CEOs must use record profit margins to increase worker pay as inflation worsens amid this new COVID surge.

UFCW International President Marc Perrone’s letter to CEOs is excerpted below:

“America’s essential workers have had to contend with an ongoing deadly pandemic that has upended their daily lives as they have put their health and safety at risk every single day. For nearly two years, the threat of COVID-19 has persisted and evolved, even as many of America’ largest food and retail companies have relaxed their safety measures. With the new COVID-19 winter surge and emergence of the Omicron variant, it is critical for our nation’s largest retail and food employers – including Amazon, Walmart, Kroger, and Whole Foods – to take immediate steps to protect essential workers and members of the public during this holiday season.”

“We are urging each of your respective companies to implement stronger in-store measures immediately and maintain these protections throughout the holidays and winter. These measures must include promoting mask wearing, free PPE access for workers, reinstating social distancing, support for worker vaccination and booster shots, and inflation wage protection. Waiting for this pandemic to once more spiral out of control is not an option. These actions must be taken now to help reduce the risk of more essential worker infections and deaths.”

“Given the enormous risk of COVID-19 that essential workers still face, we implore each of you and your respective companies to do what is right and responsible and take immediate action to protect and support essential workers. Working together, we can save lives and ensure that this holiday season is one that is not just prosperous for your companies, but is safe for essential workers, the customers they serve, and all Americans.”

You can read entire letter to the 63 retail and grocery CEOs here.

In 2021, the UFCW continued to advance workplace health and safety protections and support legislation aimed at protecting and improving the lives of our members.

Earlier this year, the UFCW hosted a virtual town hall meeting on COVID-19 safety measures and vaccine access for essential workers with Dr. Anthony Fauci, the chief medical advisor to President Biden and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health. During the event, Dr. Fauci addressed questions from UFCW members while providing the latest updates about the vaccine and why we need to keep taking the necessary precautions to slow the spread of the virus.

Our union partnered with state leaders and industry employers to expand COVID-19 vaccine access to thousands of essential meatpacking workers. We also opened up our union halls as vaccination sites.

We partnered with the University of Nebraska Medical Center and FORWARD, the national databank for rheumatic diseases, to launch a long-term, national Essential Worker Study to help our union understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on our members. The new study is focusing on rates of infection, which types of workplaces have had the most infections, and vaccination rates. To date, over 15,000 members have signed up for the study. Our union also launched a series of COVID-19 educational Q&A events to provide our members with an opportunity to have their questions about the COVID-19 disease and life-saving vaccines addressed by top doctors and public health specialists.

And this holiday season, our union launched a new holiday shopping #ThankAWorker campaign with health and safety shopping tips to show support for the men and women keeping stores open and our economy strong as the pandemic continues.

On the political front, the UFCW supported the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention mask policy recommending that vaccinated and unvaccinated Americans resume wearing masks indoors and our union also called for a national mask mandate. Our union also supported the Biden Administration’s guidance for essential worker COVID-19 hazard pay to be prioritized as governors and mayors distribute the $350 billion in state and local COVID relief aid from the American Rescue Plan.

The UFCW testified before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis about COVID-19 safety risks meatpacking workers have faced as frontline workers. Our union highlighted findings from a new report from Rep. James Clyburn, who serves as chairman of the subcommittee, which showed that meatpacking COVID-19 cases were significantly underestimated and non-union plants had some of the biggest safety failures. Our union also called on Congress and the USDA for immediate action to strengthen protections for meatpacking workers to keep them safe on the job and ensure this never happens again.

Our union supported the passage of the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act that supports good-paying union jobs, and urged Congress to invest in working families by passing the Build Back Better Act. The UFCW also announced support for the Protecting America’s Meatpacking Workers Act, new legislation from U.S. Senator Cory Booker (New Jersey) and U.S. Representative Ro Khanna (California) that will strengthen worker safety, help increase transparency, and support American jobs. Our union also called the Biden Administration vaccine mandate and Emergency Temporary Standard on workplace safety from OSHA an important first step to keeping frontline workers safe and emphasized the need for workers to have a voice in how these policies are implemented.

Here are the articles about the UFCW’s effort to protect our members that appeared in OnPoint this year:

UFCW Launches Holiday Shopping #ThankAWorker Campaign

Help Highlight UFCW Member Voices in Essential Worker Study

Help Us Recruit More Participants for the Essential Worker Study

UFCW Launches COVID-19 Educational Q&A Events

UFCW Launches New Study to Understand the Impact of COVID-19 and Strengthen Workplace Safety

UFCW Hosts “Ask Dr. Fauci” Town Hall Meeting

UFCW and Partners Expand Vaccine Access to 12,000 Meatpacking Workers

UFCW and Cargill Announce COVID-19 Vaccine Rollout Plan Across Midwest

UFCW Highlights Urgent Need for Vaccine Access and Hazard Pay for Essential Workers

Locals Host COVID-19 Vaccination Sites for Members and Communities

Here are the articles about our union’s effort to protect our members through stronger legislation and oversight from government agencies: