OPINION: Every state needs emergency regulations to protect essential food workers from Covid-19

States must act protect essential food workers during the pandemic- STAT A winter surge of Covid-19 will be especially grim for essential food workers, who still lack basic protections in the workplace. Patrick Skerrett STAT

The darkest days of the pandemic are still ahead of us, as we head into the winter with a surge of cases and without a national strategy to address Covid-19.

It will be especially grim for essential food workers like farmworkers and meat packers who still lack basic protections in the workplace. They will likely experience hundreds more needless deaths. The impact of Covid-19 on these workers could also shock the food system, with potential disruption greater than what we saw in the spring.

Attention by the incoming Biden administration to its Covid-19 task force and to policy recommendations for 2021 is an obvious and important next step to protect these rural workers down the road. Meanwhile, food businesses don’t have an impetus to protect their employees right now.

Meat, seafood, and chicken processing workers will continue to work just inches from their colleagues on ever-faster disassembly lines. Employers will continue to avoid revamping ventilation systems, to decline installing protective shields between workstations, and to require workers to provide their own personal protective equipment. And these low-wage workers, most of whom are immigrant and Latinx, with few legal protections, fear of retaliation, and heavy dependence on what work they can find, will be unable or unwilling to push back for better working conditions.

Nine months into the pandemic, workers at the center of the U.S.’s multibillion-dollar food industries continue to be forced to choose between not working — and so being unable to put food on their own tables — and running the risk of becoming infected with Covid-19 or dying from it. ...

Virginia was the first state in the country to promulgate a comprehensive temporary emergency standard for all workers. In the absence of federal leadership, other states should follow Virginia’s example. And should they want to do it, essential workers should be prioritized for Covid-19 vaccines...

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