Letter to Mitch McConnell, Senate Majority Leader, and Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader - Baldwin Leads Call for Emergency OSHA Standard to Protect Essential Workers in COVID-19 Response Legislation

Letter

Dear Leader McConnell and Leader Schumer:

We write to request that any future COVID-19 pandemic legislation include language that
ensures proper training and protection for workers on the front lines fighting this virus, and those
working to provide the essential supplies and services for all of us during these unprecedented
times. The single best way to do this is to require the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA) to issue an Emergency Temporary Standard (ETS) requiring employers
to develop and implement a comprehensive plan to protect their workers. We feel strongly that
employees need enforceable standards in place to be safe at work and for those they serve to be
safe as well. Without explicit standards from OSHA directing employers on necessary steps,
businesses are left with little direction or incentive to create a safe workplace and instill
confidence in their workforce.

Millions of Americans are bravely going to work every day, helping in the direct response to
COVID-19 and providing essential services to keep our country running. These frontline
workers are doctors, nurses, and health care staff in our hospitals, emergency responders, grocery
store workers, farmworkers, meat and poultry processing plant workers, construction workers,
transit workers, and many more.

Many of these workers are working shoulder to shoulder yet lack necessary personal protective
equipment (PPE), access to hand sanitizer, or the facilities to wash their hands with warm water
and soap as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). We feel
strongly that the federal government has an obligation to protect employees during this public
health emergency. There is a current lack of consistency surrounding the monitoring of
symptoms, sanitation practices, social distancing, personal protective equipment standards, and
communication requirements that must be addressed.

Food producers, processors, and grocery retail workers exposure to the virus endangers our
nation's food supply and the families that depend on it. The United Food and Commercial
Workers union--which represents 1.3 million retail, food package/processing, and grocery
workers--is reporting that at least 30 grocery store workers have died, and at least 3,000 have
symptoms or have been exposed to COVID-19. Major meat processing companies such JBS
USA in Colorado, Smithfield Foods in South Dakota, and Tysons Food Inc. in Iowa have
temporarily shut down certain operations due to COVID-19 cases among employees and
concerns that it may spread. Closure of these operations could lead to shortages of beef, pork,
and poultry in our nation's supermarkets and, therefore, in working families' kitchens.

No one can feel safe and secure if the workers providing them essential supplies and services are
scared for their own health and safety on the job, or are unable to work. A recent survey
conducted by Forrester Research Inc. reported that 41 percent of workers surveyed in a random
sampling of 504 US adults who work part- or full-time "are afraid to go to work because of the
risk of exposure." Further, if we do not mitigate the spread of COVID-19 in the workplace, it
will continue to spread in the community and endanger the public at large.

The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 grants OSHA the authority to issue an ETS if
workers are at grave risk of danger from a new hazard. An ETS in these circumstances should
require certain employers to develop and implement comprehensive infectious disease exposure
control plans, to provide PPE and protect essential workers at elevated risk from exposure to
viruses such as SARS--CoV--2. The ETS and feedback from stakeholders would then provide the
framework to develop a comprehensive permanent infectious disease standard that will better
prepare us for any future emergencies. A permanent standard will also help prevent shortages of
PPE which our frontline healthcare workers are experiencing now. By creating an enforceable
standard requiring proper training and use of PPE, industry will have a more certain market to
manufacture and sell this equipment to.

The COVID-19 pandemic underscores the immediate need for OSHA to issue an ETS to protect
all those who are required to work during this public health emergency from exposure to the
coronavirus. In developing such a standard, OSHA should consult with the CDC, the National
Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), unions, and worker advocacy
organizations. Additionally, OSHA should work with the CDC and NIOSH to track workrelated COVID-19 infections and make recommendations on needed actions or guidance to
protect such employees. Finally, any ETS must be followed by a finalized, long-term, permanent
standard afterwards as the ETS is by nature only temporary

As OSHA prepares the ETS, the agency should amend the recently released enforcement memo,
which is primarily focused on healthcare workers, to include all essential workers. The memo
also seems to lack meaningful OSHA inspection and enforcement authority for lack of
compliance to suggested guidelines. An enforcement memo should establish policies and help
ensure uniform procedures to minimize occupational exposure risk to the virus for all essential
work. A memo -- released in November 2009 in reaction to the H1N1 influenza -- provides
precedent and a framework for immediate action the Administration should have taken.
OSHA must be required to conduct inspections, cite enforcement and set a baseline of safety standards
for all workplaces. For non-health care workplaces, OSHA should at the very least, enforce the
sanitation, social distancing, provision of masks, and communication recommendations outlined
in the current Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance plus any additional
standards necessary to keep essential workers safe. The public is told to mitigate the pandemic by practicing social distancing, to wear masks, and to wash their hands with soap many times
during the day -- but in essential workplaces such as meatpacking, grocery stores, pharmacies
and others, employers are not taking these same precautions because they are voluntary, while
they should be required by OSHA. We cannot fight this virus if workers and the general public
they interact with are following different safety procedures.

We urge you to take immediate action -- proactively providing workers and their employers with
these important protections.

Sincerely,