Dear John,
Farmworkers, food workers, and farmers need your support during the COVID-19 pandemic. They risk their health and safety every day to ensure the country continues to function during this crisis.
Food system workers are essential. But they’re not provided with the necessary resources to protect themselves. And they’re underpaid for their labor -- even as cases of the virus in food production sites increase.
Congress must put a stop to this utter disregard for these workers’ health and wellbeing. It must act now to provide emergency protections for food workers. But your elected officials will only act if they hear from constituents like you.
Tell Congress to enforce protection of all food chain workers!
Food processing plants across the nation are becoming hotbeds of contagion. At Cargill’s Pennsylvania plant, one out of every six workers tested positive for COVID-19. And more than half of the positive COVID-19 cases in South Dakota came from the Smithfield pork processing plant.
Despite risking their health and safety every day, food workers receive poverty wages and don’t receive adequate compensation or safety standards. What’s more, many of these workers are immigrants -- making it even harder for them to access services and protections.
This is unacceptable. Congress must mandate premium pay for all food workers. They also must ensure frontline workers have access to masks, gloves, and other protective equipment, handwashing stations, and are able to maintain at least six feet distance between workers. And it must require employers to record and report coronavirus cases among workers and protect employees who report violations.
We need your help to shine a spotlight on the atrocities being committed against food workers and force Congress to act. The future of our food system depends on it.
Tell Congress to act now to protect essential workers in our food system.
The people suffering from some of the most egregious impacts from our industrialized agriculture system are also those who are among the hardest hit by the coronavirus.
Without these essential workers, the country would cease to function. Food workers are some of the heroes of this pandemic -- it’s well past time they be treated as such. Will you push Congress to put the health and safety of essential workers first?
Stand with food workers: Tell Congress to protect their health and safety!
Standing with you,
Dana Perls
Food and agriculture program manager,
Friends of the Earth
