On behalf of the thirty thousand members of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW), Local 400, including our over ten thousand members who live and work in the Commonwealth of Virginia, we submit these comments in support of a COVID-19 emergency temporary standard for all employers in Virginia. We strongly support the adoption of 16 VAC 25-220, as an emergency temporary “standard.”
Our members work in grocery stores, pharmacies, food processing plants, and health care facilities, including nursing homes, on the front line of this crisis. They are risking their health and safety every day to ensure that our nation’s food supply is safe, grocery store shelves are stocked, pharmacies are distributing medication, and our sick and elderly are cared for. Food chain and health care workers deserve not only our gratitude, but adequate protection and provision for their health, safety, and financial security.
We applaud Virginia for issuing an emergency safety standard to address COVID-19. We support the standard and recommend the following changes:
Meatpacking, poultry and grocery all should be considered High Risk industries, based on the experiences of these industries. The risk categories should reflect the experience of workers in the industries and workers in meat processing, poultry, and grocery are at a very high risk of infection and death. Food processing workers who work in meatpacking, poultry, and further processing plants are working long hours under extremely difficult, stressful, and often hazardous conditions to make sure the public has access to food. Many of the largest COVID-19 outbreaks in the country have occurred at food processing facilities. It is clear that meat and poultry slaughter and processing workers face many job risks that can lead to severe injury, illness, and even death.
Similarly, grocery workers are interacting with hundreds of customers every shift, not knowing if they are standing a few feet away from someone carrying COVID-19. The grocery store has been one of the few places open during this pandemic and will continue to be a place that is more frequently visited even as other parts of the economy are reopened. Unfortunately, many grocery stores have not implemented adequate limits on the number of shoppers or consistently enforced customer mask-wearing, which increases both the risk and the need to designate grocery stores high hazard worksites.
These brave men and women are providing an essential service despite enormous risk to their own health and the health of their families. We need these workers to stay healthy more than ever and protecting them is essential to our communities and the food supply.
Our members are getting sick and dying. Our internal estimates have confirmed at least 2 of our members in Virginia have tragically died and 167 have been diagnosed with COVID-19. We are certain that these internal estimates undercount the actual impact of the pandemic on the workers we represent.
Media reports have noted that meatpacking and poultry plants are “hot-spots” for COVID-19 infections, with sometimes up to 30% of the workforce suffering from this illness. Despite this, Tyson in Glen Allen, Virginia, has so far refused to test their entire workforce. Meatpacking and poultry workers stand in most cases one to two feet apart on the production floor, for 8 to 9 hours a day. Grocery workers have very high exposure due to the presence of the public in the stores. Many Grocery store workers are exposed to persons within 6 feet, for up to 8 hours a day.
Meatpacking, poultry and grocery workers are at high risk due to the nature of their jobs and should be classified as high hazard.
Include Workplace Redesign in Engineering Controls
The most effective way to protect workers from contracting COVID-19 in the meat processing, poultry, and grocery industries are engineering controls that include the option for workplace redesign. Workplace redesign should be listed as an engineering control in the proposed standard.
Workplace redesign should be prioritized over barriers. Currently many meatpacking and poultry employers are only putting up barriers despite the lack of data to support the effectiveness of barriers to reduce the spread of the virus. There is science that supports the reduction of virus spread when people are 6 feet or more apart. Therefore, workplace redesign which results in physical distancing to 6 feet apart between workers is the primary control that these standards should require in meat processing and poultry. This will require the slowing of production lines. The Executive Order on meatpacking issued in Illinois is an example of including redesigning and slowing down the production line as an engineering control.
UFCW Local 400 recommends the following modification:
“Engineering Control means the use of substitution, isolation, ventilation, equipment modification and worktable, and workspace redesign or modification to reduce exposure to … In meatpacking and poultry plants, workers often work at long tables which move product along the table on conveyor belts. In order to appropriately space workers apart to 6 feet, engineering controls may be required to redesign the worktables and conveyors as well as slowing the volume of product through the line.”
Change Definition of Occupational Exposure
The “occupational exposure” definition should be modified to include breakroom and locker rooms. The current definition only mentions exposure during job tasks.
UFCW Local 400 recommends the following modification:
“Occupational exposure means the state of being actually or potentially exposed to contact with … related hazards during job tasks, during authorized breaks during the work shift, in other areas where workers normally congregate on the work site, including locker rooms and in the course of employment”
A significant source of COVID-19 exposure for meat processing, poultry, and grocery workers can take place in areas where workers congregate, that are related to the job, but are not actually part of the job tasks. Workers are often assigned lockers, and locker rooms or break rooms are areas where ventilation is often not adequate, and space is tight, as workers put on and take off protective clothing or gear. In a typical plant, there could be hundreds of workers in break rooms and lunchrooms.
Make Sure Training Available at All Hazard Levels
UFCW Local 400 recommends that Virginia require that all employees at all hazard levels be provided with job-specific education and training on preventing transmission of COVID-19, including initial, routine and refresher training. The training materials should be provided in the languages workers read and speak.
Complying with CDC Guidelines Is Not Enough
The guidance issued by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Occupational Health and Safety Administration is a step in the right direction, but all workers, including meat, poultry, and grocery workers need mandatory and enforceable standards to protect workers from contracting and spreading COVID?19.
UFCW Local 400 recommends the removal of Section G which states “To the extent that an employer complies with requirements contained in CDC publications to mitigate SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 related hazards or job tasks addressed by this standard/regulation, the employer’s actions shall be considered in compliance with this standard/regulation.” Employers should be required to comply with the requirements of this Virginia OSHA standard and guidance cannot supersede a standard.
Report Infections to Government Health Authorities and Worker Representatives
The proposed standard as written states that “If employers are notified of a positive test in a worker, they must notify employees according to HIPPA, other employers at site, building owner.” There is no requirement to report these cases to any government authority. We believe the standard can be strengthened, and public health can be improved by adding the following:
“Employers should be required to immediately report positive cases to the local or state public health department, OSHA, and CDC, as well as any designated collective bargaining representative of the work force. Employers must be required to report all infections in the workplace (presumptively) to OSHA.”
Mandate Masks for Customers in Grocery and Retail Stores
We strongly support requirements that employees in customer facing industries wear face masks. Masks have been shown to significantly reduce the chance of transmission of the virus from the person wearing the mask to others. Grocery store employees wearing masks, as our members in Virginia do, protects their co-workers, vendors, and the public. These employees should also be protected from a potentially virus carrying shopper or vendor by mandating that everyone who enters a store wear a mask.
UFCW Local 400 recommends the following modification:
“Provide face coverings to all non-employees to contain respiratory secretions and mandate that they are worn at all times they are on site.”
In addition to these points, UFCW Local 400 supports the comments submitted by both the National AFL-CIO and the Virginia AFL-CIO, as well as the comments submitted by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.
Thank you for the opportunity to comment.
Sincerely,
Mark P. Federici
President and UFCW International
Vice President