Food workers are still on the job throughout every sector of the food supply chain, providing essential services for the public in this moment of crisis and every day. Yet while corporations are profiting off this crisis, food workers are on the front lines facing dangerous working conditions, a loss of wages, and a lack of access to healthcare.

Here are 5 things you can do to support food workers NOW:

1. CALL ON GOVERNMENT TO ACT to ensure sick days, healthcare, worker protections, and income for all workers.Sign our petition here.

2. DEMAND BIG FOOD CORPORATIONS provide sick pay, hazard pay, family leave, and respect the right to organize. Here are just a few petitions started by food workers and food worker organizations:

• Tyson and other poultry companies 
• Major restaurant chains like Applebee’s, IHOP, and Denny’s
• Trader Joe’s
• Amazon 

3. SUPPORT FOOD WORKER ORGANIZING 

• Follow us on Twitter (@FOODCHAINWORKER) and amplify our members organizing
• Donate to support FCWA’s food worker organizing work
• Are you a food worker? Need support organizing to make a change at work? Get in touch here: https://bit.ly/FoodWorkersOrganize

4. DONATE TO DIRECT NEEDS, FOOD WORKER FUNDS 

• ROC United Restaurant Worker Disaster Relief Fund  
• Street Vendor COVID-19 Emergency Fund
• Farmworkers Association of Florida’s Coronavirus Relief for Farmworkers 
• Laundry Workers Center’s Emergency Response Fund
• Alianza Agrícola’s Emergency Solidarity Fund
• Pioneer Valley Workers Center’s 413 Undocu-Worker Solidarity Fund 
• CATA’s Coronavirus Relief for Farmworkers 
• RCWA: Support Meatpacking Plant Workers in Rural Missouri
• Brandworkers Mutual Aid Fund
• Migrant Justice Solidarity Fund [Donations can be sent directly to: Migrant Justice – Justicia Migrante, 179 South Winooski Ave., Unit 202, Burlington, VT 05401]
• One Fair Wage Emergency Fund for Tipped and Service Workers

5. SUPPORT AND SHARE RESOURCES with food workers in your community

• FCWA’s Food Worker Resources

Thank you for supporting food worker organizing!

Food workers who serve, deliver, distribute, process and harvest our food are doing critical work in this moment of crisis and everyday. Food workers are still on the job throughout the food chain. Every aspect of the food supply chain are essential services for the public and recognized as such in many government orders. This is highlighting what food workers have been saying for years — our work makes it possible for the world to eat.

Yet, food workers on the front line are facing dangerous working conditions, a loss of wages, and a lack of access to healthcare, while many corporations are profiting off this crisis. Urgent action is needed by all levels of government to protect food workers and not just big business, now and in the long-term. 

HEALTH & SAFETY OF WORKERS MUST BE A PRIORITY 

Even with the enormous job loss taking place, food workers around the country are still working shoulder to shoulder on food processing lines and in warehouses, farmworkers are still planting and harvesting food, food workers are delivering food. Many food workers in rural and urban areas are going to work with no instructions on how to keep themselves safe and without adequate protective gear.

• Employers must provide workers with accurate and current information on how to protect themselves and their communities from the virus in a language they understand, that is culturally appropriate, and at a literacy level that is appropriate. 
• Employers must guarantee safe workplaces, including providing all necessary protective equipment, frequent and regular hand-washing breaks, and the required space for “social distancing.”  Farmworkers must be provided easy access to clean and a sufficient amount of water at close proximity to the work site.
• The same health & safety information and protective equipment must be given to workers in crowded and substandard employer-provided housing.
• OSHA must issue an emergency standard for infectious diseases to ensure that workers will be protected from all infectious diseases in their workplaces, including COVID-19.

FAIR WORKING CONDITIONS 

We also recognize that this is a time of great disruption to the lives of working people. Workers should not have to choose between keeping their jobs and taking care of themselves and their families. 

• All workers must have access to free testing, healthcare coverage, and paid sick days regardless of status and size of workplace, including workers in the US and Canada country on H-2A or migrant worker visas.
• A minimum of 15 paid sick days per year leave for all workers regardless of size of workplace, and additional paid leave for all workers. 
• Additional paid sick days for all workers when there is a public health emergency.
• H-2A workers that are currently working in the US (and migrant workers working under the Temporary Foreign Worker Program in Canada) and who become ill must be assured not only free health care, but  with no penalties for inability to complete a contract due to the illness. They must be provided all important information about safety and security relative to their safe transportation back to their home country. Guestworkers awaiting arrival in the U.S. and Canada to begin work, must be provided all relevant information regarding health and safety protections and measures. 
• Workers should be afforded Paid Family Leave as needed 
• Workers in industries like retail, warehousing and distribution, delivery, that are expanding their hours and work during this time should make overtime voluntary, and guarantee overtime pay.
• All food workers continuing to provide essential services should be entitled to receive hazard pay, at a premium of time and a half. 

SUPPORT WORKERS FACING JOB LOSS & WAGE LOSS 

For millions of workers, including food workers, there is enormous job and wage loss. With the majority of food workers already living paycheck to paycheck with low wages, this presents an immediate and long-term crisis. Restaurant workers, reliant on tips to survive, are now facing the financial repercussions of business closings or operating only on take-out. 

At the same time, workers need the ability to stop working due to safety concerns, the need to care for family members, or their own health, and still get paid regardless of their immigration status or job classification, now and for the many months this crisis may last. Federal, state and local governments must ensure that workers receive the supplemental income they need in the form of: 

• Expanded access to unemployment insurance regardless of immigration or employment status through a clear and easy process. 
• Cash grants and other subsidies must be offered to workers facing wage loss, with clear and easy access, covering full replacement of wages, and regardless of employment or immigration status.
• We also support the call to offer monthly cash payments to all U.S. Households to support workers and their families during this crisis. 
• We also support the call for cash grants and other financial assistance to support small businesses from street vendors, to bodegas, to local eateries.
• Immediate Moratorium on rent, mortgage payments, loan payments, and no utility shut offs. NO MORE DEBT
• Immediate Moratorium on the Public Charge Rule which would disqualify immigrants who use public assistance from obtaining permanent residency status. 

*All corporations in the food economy who will continue to profit in the millions, billions and trillions should continue to pay their workers during this time of wage loss. The government should make it a condition of any bail-outs to businesses that the company continues to pay workers throughout the crisis.

IMMIGRATION & UNDOCUMENTED WORKERS 

First and foremost, ALL OF THESE BENEFITS MUST BE MADE AVAILABLE TO ALL WORKERS REGARDLESS OF STATUS! We also call for:

• An Immediate moratorium on all immigration enforcement, including repatriations and deportations of guest workers and non-status migrants  
• An Immediate release of all immigration detainees from detention centers and detention camps and adequate health services for all. 
• A removal of restrictions on work permits for guest workers and migrant workers who have been laid off or terminated  

STREET VENDORS 

Street vendors are generally not eligible for state-sponsored benefits or support like paid sick leave and unemployment insurance, or even small business relief funds. For workers in informal economies, this is a dire situation, leaving many with fear and confusion as to how they will support themselves and their families in the days, weeks and months to come. These low-wage immigrant workers rely on busy streets in order to survive day to day. Without a safety net to fall back on, they are forced to continue to work, with little returns, and risking their health and wellbeing in the process. We join Street Vendors in New York City and elsewhere calling for:

• Waiving all late penalties for late tax filings   
• Immediate suspension of city and state enforcement of street vendor compliance violations – regardless of whether the vendor has a permit or a license.   
• Waiver of outstanding tickets issued since January 2020, as vendors won’t be able to work for the foreseeable future.   
• Create and expand granting opportunities for low-income sole proprietors for street vendors and other small business 
• Ensure street vendors and delivery workers are included in city child care plan for frontline workers   
• Ensure workers who are employed by food cart or truck owners, including undocumented workers, are eligible for unemployment insurance and any forthcoming emergency relief funds 

RIGHT TO ORGANIZE

This moment is illuminating what is always true, that the food industry is one of the most exploitative industries in the world and food workers are too often treated as disposable. 

We must demand: 

• An expansion of protection of the right to organize, enabling food workers to meaningfully exercise their labor rights, to protect themselves and their communities. 

Food workers are on the front line of the current public health crisis and the resulting economic crisis surrounding the Coronavirus pandemic, along with other precarious workers. Food workers who serve, deliver, distribute, process and harvest our food are doing critical work and are not in a position to follow public health guidance to work from home or maintain social distance, and are very unlikely to have access to paid sick days.

The pandemic is illustrating how strong social safety nets, workplace protections, and public health measures benefit everyone. We know that food workers who don’t have paid sick days and cannot count on other workplace protections, potentially put consumers at risk when they are forced to come to work when they are ill.

Furthermore, many food workers are already working in dangerous and low-paid jobs, or, like restaurant workers, reliant on tips to survive and now facing the financial repercussions of slow business and numerous cancelled events. Food workers who deliver food or groceries through the gig economy are often misclassified as independent contractors and frequently do not have access to workplace protections, paid sick days, or unemployment insurance. The broken healthcare system in the US means many food workers do not have access to health insurance and quality healthcare. For farmworkers who work seasonally, there may be no work to go back to by the time the crisis lifts. 

Data shows that workers of color are far more likely to be paid poverty-level wages than white workers, meaning the impact of this crisis on them and their families is likely to be greater.  

In the supply chains of multinational corporations around the world, workers are producing food destined for supermarkets and restaurants in our communities. From melon workers in Honduras to seafood industry workers in Thailand, many of these workers are denied their internationally-recognized rights to freedom of association, which makes it all the harder for them to raise their voices when they do not have paid sick leave.

FCWA members, and other food workers nationally, are lifting up and winning important demands in this critical moment. 

• Walmart workers, organizing with United for Respect, launched a petition and won an initial paid sick leave policy from Walmart this week.
• Restaurant workers are pushing to be included in One Fair Wage legislation in New York State and for restaurant chains to provide paid sick leave.
• Pioneer Valley Workers Center is calling on employers to sign a Solidarity Pledge for Paid Sick Days
• Amazon warehouse workers are demanding payment for lost wages and paid sick leave. 
• Workers and allies are calling on city, state, provincial and federal governments to enact paid sick leave policies (such as is included in the Families First Coronavirus Response Act or Healthy Families Act) and related policies to protect and support vulnerable workers and communities.

It is urgent that all levels of government act quickly to ensure that food workers and all workers are guaranteed:

• A minimum of 15 paid sick days per year leave for all workers regardless of size of workplace, and additional paid leave for all workers
• Additional paid sick days for all workers when there is a public health emergency.
• Safe workplaces and fair working conditions, including adequate safety equipment for workers free of charge.
• The protection and expansion of the right to organize, enabling food workers to meaningfully exercise their labor rights
• Access to an emergency fund for those who are experiencing a loss or interruption of earnings, regardless of immigration status 
• Access to unemployment insurance regardless of immigration or employment status 
• Healthcare for all, regardless of immigration status
• A halt on evictions and utility shut-offs
• Immediate moratorium on all immigration enforcement, including repatriations and deportations of guest workers and non-status migrants   
• A removal of restrictions on work permits for guest workers and migrant workers who have been laid off or terminated 
• Special supports for workers in crowded and substandard employer-provided housing
• Financial support for small businesses who experience hardship as a result of the public health crisis.

Further resources: 

• Council of Global Unions (CGU) Joint Statement: COVID-19 Urgent Economic Stimulus and Workplace Measures Required 
• NDLON: Worker & Migrant Justice Response to the Coronavirus

Photo: United Workers