By, Doris Crouse-Mays, President, Virginia AFL-CIO
–It is time to address the safety of workers in Virginia who are putting their lives on the line during this pandemic. Frontline workers and those providing other essential services are facing unsafe conditions day in and day out. The safety of our Commonwealth is also at stake because our workplaces are not safe.
We must protect all workers including transit workers, healthcare workers, first responders, grocery store workers, meat and poultry slaughter and processing workers, seafood workers, port workers, farmworkers, utility workers, truck drivers, building trades workers, postal workers, sanitation workers, longshore and harbor workers, and steelworkers. They are providing essential services for the community, yet their lives are at risk because they are not being protected from the spread of COVID-19.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) guidelines offer a step in the right direction, but Governor Northam must implement and enforce regulations to protect Virginia workers from further spread of COVID-19.
Workers across Virginia urge Governor Northam to require employers to do the following:
- Enforce social and physical distancing
- Provide proper and adequate on-the-job personal protective equipment
- Provide COVID-19 safety training
- Provide rapid and reliable free testing
- Protect workers from retaliation
- Provide mandatory paid quarantine and paid sick leave
A recent study by the Kaiser Family Foundation ranked Virginia as 48th in the United States for testing rates in response to COVID-19. And last year Virginia was ranked as the worst state for workers by Oxfam. These two rankings are startling and reinforce the urgency of taking enforceable action at once.
Virginia must implement critical rules to make workplaces safer with key protections and enforce laws that will hold employers accountable and keep front-line and essential workers safe.
The voices of workers and unions must be heard. We want nothing more than for workers to be able to return to work, but the desire to open businesses must not outweigh health and safety.
The main question should not be when we reopen but how we reopen. We must all be confident – employers, employees, and consumers – that safety measures are implemented and workers are protected. The primary criterion for deciding whether it is safe for workers to return to work is worker safety, based on sound science rather than politics or profits.
To protect Virginia’s workers and the communities they serve, workers must have a say in safety decisions at every level. Workers are calling for urgent and mandatory protections for workers. We must come together and take action because none of us are safe until all of us are safe.
LINK TO PETITION (CALLING ON GOV. NORTHAM TO PROTECT WORKERS)