We Need to Better Protect Food and Farmworkers During COVID-19 And Beyond

This week, the Food Chain Workers Alliance (FWCA) released a report showing just how much COVID-19 has impacted workers across the food system and highlighting how these essential workers have received few protections on the job. Workers, who come predominantly from communities of color, have gotten sick and taken the virus home. At the same time they’ve had little access to healthcare and have been excluded from many economic stimulus programs. As vaccines roll out and Congress debates the next round of economic relief, advocates for workers in the food system are working tirelessly to make sure that food and farmworkers are not left behind. Moving forward, advocates, like those working with FWCA, are pushing for change in several priority areas that they say will help protect food and farmworkers during and after the pandemic.

Food and Farmworkers Should be Prioritized for Vaccination 

Since distribution began in December 2019, about 13.5 percent of the US population has been vaccinated against COVID-19. While medical workers have generally gotten the first doses, other essential workers, including those in the food system, were included in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s recommendations for priority vaccination. By the numbers, jobs in the food system have been some of the most dangerous when it comes to virus exposure: outbreaks in meatpacking plants and other food processing facilities have infected nearly 90,000 workers. Food workers are clearly in need of priority vaccination.

But not every state has given food workers that needed attention. In New York, grocery workers were given priority, but farmworkers were not, with officials citing low supply. And in Florida, food system workers are slated to receive the vaccine after the state’s large elderly population. Advocates there point to the high rate of positive tests among farmworkers — up to 30 percent in some areas — as evidence that agricultural workers are in real danger.

Some workers in Florida also face an additional barrier: receiving the vaccine requires proof of residency. As many workers are undocumented or lack permanent residency, they won’t be able to recieve it even when foodworkers do become eligible for vaccination. This highlights a broader problem faced by undocumented food system workers around the country: despite their essential designation, they still suffer from discriminatory policies. Nebraska’s governor indicated in January that undocumented meatpacking workers wouldn’t be eligible for the vaccine, stating his narrow viewpoint that these workers shouldn’t be in Nebraska at all.

But advocates point out that the virus doesn’t infect based on immigration status, and putting undocumented workers at the back of the line needlessly endangers people who are already poorly compensated for their difficult and dangerous work. Leaving so many people vulnerable to infection isn’t just unconsionable: considering about half of all farmworkers and many other foodworkers are undocumented, it also undermines the stability of the entire food system.

Recognizing that Nebraska’s meatpacking industry wouldn’t be able to operate without undocumented workers, the governor’s office walked back his statement, clarifying that undocumented workers would be elligble after their coworkers with formal legal status. But still, advocates feel that even this might make vaccination — much like medical care or worker’s compensation — into something that undocumented people are afraid to access for fear of deportation. With supply projected to go up as more vaccines gain approval, it’s critical that food workers (regardless of legal status) be given priority. Timing is critical, and making sure that food workers get early access would both save lives and make the food supply more secure.

Meatpacking Plants and Farms Must Be Made Safer 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) was originally designed to create and enforce workplace safety standards across multiple industries, including farming and food processing. But with its ties to industry and disdain for regulation, the Trump administration’s use of the agency was extremely limited, even before the pandemic. The number of OSHA inspectors fell steadily to its lowest number in 45 years through 2019, and the number of workplace safety inspections dropped as well. Jobs across multiple industries became more dangerous as a result: 2019 saw more than 900 investigations into fatal or catastrophic workplace accidents, many of which occured in food processing.

Meatpacking was one notable beneficiary of the Trump administration’s eagerness to deregulate. Meatpackers pushed for increases in slaughter and processing line speeds, which are capped by the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to prevent injury and ensure adequate food safety inspections. Labor unions have long held that faster line speeds are unsafe for workers, and new data backs them up: after pork processors got the greenlight to run lines faster, workers are seeing increases in cuts, sprains and other injuries.

Frontline Food and Farmworkers Still Need Hazard Pay

Many companies, including Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Walmart, awarded benefits to help compensate for hazardous working conditions in the early months of the pandemic. But most employers dropped the programs within a few months. While food companies justified these rollbacks as cost-saving measures that would prevent consumers from seeing high prices, there’s little evidence the programs caused a financial burden. In fact, analysis from the Brookings Institution shows that despite record profits during the pandemic, food and grocery companies were the least generous when it came to pandemic pay increases. Per their analysis, companies like Walmart could have quadrupled the amount of hazard pay they offered and still maintained profit growth from 2019.

Public support for hazard pay remains high, however. Measures that would grant hazard pay to farmworkers also have popular support in areas with a large agricultural industry, with more than 70 percent of respondents to one California poll stating their support for hazard pay and sick leave for farmworkers. In some instances, labor unions have successfully leveraged their essential status to extend or increase hazard pay; produce handlers of Hunts Point Produce Market in New York, one of the country’s largest food distribution facilities, secured a raise after successfully focusing media attention on their strike. The workers were supported by a number of politicians and celebrities, who helped draw national attention to the fact that people who had been labeled “heroes” only months before were now struggling to make ends meet. FCWA’s report highlights many similar campaigns, many of which are still struggling to gain similar traction and support from the public.

Labor organizers have some support from the Biden administration, who have stated their support for “generous back hazard pay” for grocery workers during the pandemic. How they plan to accomplish this is less clear: their plan only specifies that they would pressure CEOs to take action. The city of San Francisco passed a non-binding ordinancance to the same effect. This kind of public encouragement to do the right thing can help  — it was certainly instrumental to many companies granting hazard pay in the early months of the pandemic — but as the quiet withdrawal of those benefits only months later shows, it isn’t a legal commitment.

But while encouragement lacks teeth, legal mandates can face serious resistance: after Long Beach, California passed legislation that secured a $4 hourly raise for grocery workers, for example, Kroger closed two of its locations there. Considering the grocery chain’s enormous size, the action seems to be less about their profits in those stores and more about preventing other cities from adopting similar measures. The United Commercial and Food Workers International Union vowed to fight the action, stating that “Kroger does not have the right to ignore laws designed to protect workers and the public.”

Activists have also noted concern about offers that would supplant hazard pay with less substantive compensation. In Kroger’s case, employees can receive a $100 stipend for getting vaccinated. Many other chains are offering even less. Between the fact that these rewards cover only a few hours worth of hazard pay and the reality that many food workers can’t even get the vaccine yet, these one-and-done approaches feel more like out-of-touch PR opportunities than substantive help for workers.