WASHINGTON _ Democrats in the House and Senate want new worker protections during the coronavirus pandemic.
Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott and North Carolina Rep. Alma Adams, both Democrats, introduced a bill that would direct the federal agency in charge of worker safety to make an emergency rule to help keep workers safe.
No Republicans have signed on to co-sponsor the House bill. A similar measure has been introduced in the Senate, where Republicans have a majority.
Several meat packing plants have had to shut down recently after coronavirus outbreaks, including one at a Smithfield Foods pork processing plant in Sioux Falls, S.D., that infected at least 500 people, according to the Associated Press.
Scott said the U.S. Department of Labor has not done enough to protect workers during the pandemic.
"Without an enforceable workplace safety standard to protect workers against COVID-19 infection, nurses, doctors, first responders, grocery store workers, food processors, delivery workers, and many others will continue to suffer alarming rates of infection that have already led to thousands of preventable illnesses and deaths," Scott said in a statement.
The bill, titled "The COVID-19 Every Worker Protection Act," would direct the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to set new rules for employers to keep workers safe.
"Thousands of essential workers are going to work every day despite the risk of being infected by a disease unlike any we have witnessed in our lifetimes. We need to do more to make sure that these brave men and women have the necessary protections in place to keep them safe," Florida Democrat Rep. Donna Shalala said in the statement.
Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, along with Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth and Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, all Democrats, are pushing similar legislation in the Senate.
"Workers across the country who are facing significant health and safety risks as they continue to keep us healthy, fed, and safe during this pandemic deserve to be protected," Murray said in a news release. "We need clear, effective, and comprehensive requirements to ensure employees who continue to come into work across the country are kept safe."
According to the House Committee on Education & Labor, the bill would require OSHA to set new rules within seven days that require "all workplaces to implement infectious disease exposure control plans to keep workers safe during the COVID-19 pandemic."
The bill would also give protections to whistleblowers who complain about working conditions and extend the protections to all state workers.
