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A new California bill would lay the groundwork for farmworkers, grocery store employees and other food sector workers to be prioritized for vaccine distribution and rapid testing during this pandemic and future ones.
While still short on specifics, AB 93 is intended to ensure the food sector workers, as essential workers who have been hard-hit by COVID-19, are near the front of the line for vaccination. Assemblymember Eduardo Garcia, a Democrat from Coachella, said he expects the bill to start conversations, shaping the legislation that “could potentially become a model for the nation.
Garcia introduced the bill this week with Assemblymember Robert Rivas, a Democrat from Hollister.
A California city could be the first in the nation to require pandemic hazard pay for farmworkers
A city in California is including farmworkers among those who must receive hazard pay for the risks they are undertaking during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Coachella, a Southern California city known for its popular annual music festival, passed an ordinance on Wednesday that requires retail pharmacies, grocery stores, restaurants and agricultural businesses in the city to provide additional compensation to their workers given the threat they face from the coronavirus.
Under the mandate, affected businesses that employ more than 300 people nationally or more than five people in the city will have to pay their workers an additional $4 an hour for at least 120 days. The regulation would also prevent businesses from retaliating against workers by limiting or reducing their pay.
Essential but disposable: how California farmworkers battle COVID-19
byJenny Manrique, Ethnic Media Services February 11, 2021
Study reveals the high degree of exposure to the coronavirus in the fields and the profound impact on the economy and mental health of these families.
In addition to high risk exposure to COVID-19, farmworkers in California have borne the brunt of setbacks caused by the pandemic: loss of income and employment, sudden childcare costs due to school closings, problems with distance learning due to poor or zero Internet access, food shortages, housing insecurity and even mental health problems.
The dire diagnosis was compiled in the report “Always Essential, Perpetually Disposable: California Farm Workers and the COVID-19 Pandemic,” a research conducted by the California Institute for Rural Studies and several grassroots organizations.