National Week of Action for Hazard Pay for Essential Workers
/When the COVID-19 outbreak hit, our members across industries felt it immediately—especially in frontline industries like health care and grocery stores.
We continue to believe that all essential workers deserve hazard pay during this pandemic.
UFCW has been advocating for employer-paid hazard pay as well as federal support for essential workers throughout this pandemic. Hazard pay is intended to compensate people for hazardous work duties, and all essential workers have had elevated risk added to their work lives during this crisis. We also believe many workers have new job duties related to sanitizing, infection control, protective equipment, chemical use, and handling ever-evolving public health recommendations and government mandates that change nearly everything we do. These new duties and the reminder of the centrality of our work deserves recognition that goes well beyond thank-you commercials.
After workers spoke up about what we were facing on the job and started organizing for hazard pay, many grocery employers started paying it in various forms, most commonly $2/hour in extra wages. “We recognize that this crisis is far from over,” Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen wrote to workers in mid-April. “After reflecting on feedback from you, we want to further acknowledge you for your hard work to date as well as the work yet to come.” But by mid-May, Kroger had cut hazard pay, and in mid-June Safeway/Albertsons followed suit. Other smaller local chains have ended hazard pay or never started it in the first place. And health care workers facing daily exposure to COVID patients have been demanding hazard pay from early on in this once-in-a-century pandemic, with very little action from health care employers.
We know this crisis is still far from over. This summer we’ve started giving employers more of the kind of “feedback” that really moves corporate offices—union grievances, public pressure, and essential workers and our community coming together to say enough is enough.
NATIONAL WEEK OF ACTION FOR HAZARD PAY
UFCW essential workers across the country are taking action next week to stand up for hazard pay. You can participate in this week of action!
Below, click the button to record a video message explaining why hazard pay is important to you, and what it’s like working through a pandemic. Whether it’s cracked skin and repetitive stress injuries from constant sanitizing and disinfecting, working in health care without adequate PPE, or representing an industry that hasn’t been in the news as much but is still essential—laundries, food processing, cannabis, retail, etc! Why do we need hazard pay? Let’s tell the public:
If you’d like to participate further in the national week of action for hazard pay, contact your Union Rep.
HAZARD PAY GRIEVANCES FILED
In July, UFCW 21 filed grievances over Fred Meyer, QFC, Albertsons, Safeway, Haggen, and PCC’s cutting of our hazard pay. Here’s an excerpt of what we said in our grievance:
As you know, the Employer paid Hazard or Appreciation pay to bargaining unit employees for at least two reasons. First, it recognized Local 21 members have been working in the stores under constant threat of exposure to the deadly COVID-19 virus. Second, the Employer relies on Local 21 members to perform additional and/or different job functions to allow customers to continue shopping uninterrupted during pandemic conditions.
Both conditions mentioned above continue to persist today. Nevertheless, the Employer unilaterally decided to eliminate or modify the Hazard/Appreciation pay. In doing so, Local 21 believes the Employer has violated numerous terms of the parties' labor agreements, including, but not limited to the Recognition, Wage classification provisions and Appendices, and Just Cause.
In the coming weeks there will be plenty of opportunities to support this grievance and take action to show employers that we are all paying close attention to their next steps and we are not taking no for an answer.
