Great News! This afternoon, Los Angeles’ City Attorney was instructed to draft an ordinance instituting a $5 Hazard Pay for all grocery and drug retail workers in the City of LA! Members flooded Council with postcards helping to achieve this important first step toward Hazard Pay. Things are moving quickly! Stay tuned for more updates on this important issue!!
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage our communities and put the safety and lives and working families at risk. Since the start of the pandemic, over 5,335 of our members have become infected with Covid 19. Twelve of our members have passed away, including a member who passed this weekend. In December and January alone, over 2,740 of our members have become infected. These numbers are horrifying. Your courage and commitment deserve just compensation.
To make this happen we need to all stand up and make our voices heard. You can still get involved by going to
http://bit.ly/HazardPayCard to sign in support of Hazard Pay for essential workers like you!
Social Media
https://ufcw770.org/la-city-hazard-pay/
L.A. County is now expanding its COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to food and agriculture workers.
"Our members, and I would say all grocery workers, all essential workers are very excited to receive it," she said. "I think there has been this underlying assumption that once the vaccine is open people would not get it --that's far from the truth."
https://ufcw770.org/hazard-pay-frequently-asked-questions-faqs/
Your access code is 770
iPhone Link: https://apple.co/3jmKWL3
Android Link: https://bit.ly/3jWzx4Q
We’re joined during #BlackHistoryMonth by activist and scholar Reverend James M. Lawson Jr., a leading theoretician and tactician of nonviolence within the Civil Rights movement. We learn the reason he left the South to come to Los Angeles, look back on his memories of getting arrested with CA State Senator (and former LA Fed President) Maria Elena Durazo, and hear the advice he has to bestow to young organizers.
But these same corporations still refuse to compensate the front-line workers making this windfall possible. They oppose wage increases for Covid-19 or even temporary Hazard Pay.
Tell the fatcat corporate CEOs that their front-line workers deserve Hazard Pay for risking their lives, their families’ lives, and doing the work executives are too frightened to do themselves.
Support Hazard Pay now. They can afford it.
This letter follows the recent announcement from Kroger that it would close two Long Beach grocery stores as a result of the city’s temporary required hazard pay for employees.
Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Lakewood) and Assemblymember Mike A. Gipson (D-Carson) issued statements in response to Kroger’s decision:
“In difficult times, our obligation is to protect those most at risk. In this pandemic that includes frontline workers and low-income communities,” said Rendon. “The grocery workers who encounter hundreds of potentially infected customers every day deserve temporary hazard pay. The low-income communities served by these stores deserve access to healthy foods. The nation’s largest supermarket chain is the one least deserving of protection.”
“Kroger has put profit over people while sending out mixed messages of helping the Black and Brown communities. On February 1, 2021, Kroger announced that they awarded $1 million from their new Racial Equity Fund to Los Angeles-based Everytable because of the ‘extreme scarcity of health food options,’ stated Assemblymember Gipson. “Their two markets targeted for closure are located in ‘food deserts’ where residents experience the same ‘extreme scarcity’ of healthy foods that Kroger portends to address.
“At the same time that Kroger announced their philanthropic efforts, they also released news of the closure of two Long Beach markets in Black and Brown communities alleging that adding an additional $4 per hour to the salaries of their frontline grocery workers would bankrupt them. Kroger’s reported sales revealed a 9% increase in 2019 with profits doubling to $2.66 billion from $1.33 billion a year earlier,” said Gipson. “Shame on you for jeopardizing the jobs of these courageous and loyal employees during this crisis. I am prepared to support a boycott of Kroger throughout California if this action is not reversed.”
https://t.co/glFEYohZW8
America’s Largest Food and Retail Union Condemns Kroger Move to Close Grocery Stores to After Long Beach Mandates Hazard Pay
Lila Downs pays tribute to all essential workers who have kept us safe. This song reminds us that our essential work has value and that as frontline workers, we’re connected as brothers and sisters. Enjoy and stay strong!!
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to ravage our communities and put the safety and lives and working families at risk. Since the start of the pandemic, over 5,335 of our members have become infected with Covid 19. Twelve of our members have passed away, including a member who passed this weekend. In December and January alone, over 2,740 of our members have become infected. These numbers are horrifying. Your courage and commitment deserve just compensation.
To make this happen we need to all stand up and make our voices heard. You can still get involved by going to http://bit.ly/HazardPayCard to sign in support of Hazard Pay for essential workers like you!
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