Labor advocates are pressing for stronger action to protect workers. Scott Faber, the Environmental Working Group’s senior vice president for government affairs, called on the Trump administration to impose mandatory safety standards to protect food industry workers, help procure protective equipment and provide federal aid to help retrofit plants to protect workers.
“Food processing workers, who are disproportionately people of color, are taking enormous and largely avoidable risks to keep the rest of us fed, but the Trump Administration has failed to ensure they are safe,” Faber said.
In Washington, workers at the company where Cruz had worked, Allan Bros. Inc., held a strike starting on May 7 to demand better protections. Cruz participated in a demonstration May 8, but was sick by the next day, according to Edgar Franks, political director of Familias Unidas por la Justicia, the local union.
After three weeks, a deal was reached between workers and Allan Bros. The company -- located in Naches, just outside of Yakima -- agreed to provide masks to employees and to follow CDC guidance on coronavirus. It also said it would, where possible, require social distancing of at least 6 feet, and where not, it would provide face shields and plexiglass barriers, according to Franks. The company also pledged a temporary $1 an hour raise through June 26, he said.
The strike ended May 28. Cruz died on May 31.
Allan Bros. confirmed it received a request for comment through its outside public relations firm but didn’t immediately respond further.
Cases in Yakima help to illustrate why the figures from Environmental Working Group are almost certainly an undercount.
Columbia Legal Services, a non-profit legal aid program in Washington state, filed a public records law request for confirmed Covid cases by employer from Yakima County health authorities. It showed 470 cases at 23 fruit facilities as of June 2. The Environmental Working Group’s list shows only 31 cases at one facility from the county. At one Yakima facility, 19% of the workforce had a confirmed coronavirus diagnosis, according to the county list.
“Workers at these packing houses started to get sick in large numbers,” said Franks, whose group helped to organize the memorial caravan for Cruz. “It’s always on the minds of people, that it could be one of them or their friends of family. That’s a real concern.”
--With assistance from James Attwood and Deena Shanker.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.