California companies can keep workplace COVID outbreaks secret. Here’s what happened
Supporters of a push to require companies to report workplace coronavirus outbreaks publicly say they plan to keep fighting despite recent setbacks that they say allow big businesses to keep outbreaks secret.
In February, Assemblymember Eloise Gómez Reyes, D-San Bernardino, proposed the law requiring the California Department of Public Health to report COVID-19 outbreaks by workplace location, meaning outbreaks at specific businesses would be disclosed to the public.
But that requirement was dropped from the bill’s final version, allowing companies — and public health officials — to withhold coronavirus outbreak information from the public. Instead, health officials will report infections by industry.
Worker advocates say this leaves workers and the public vulnerable and in the dark.
“Public disclosure of this data shouldn’t be as contentious as it is,” said Ana Padilla, executive director at UC Merced Community and Labor Center.
Fresno assemblymember says COVID reporting requirement was ‘overreach’
In an interview last year with The Bee, Reyes said that the original goal of AB 685 was that “individual worksite outbreaks would be publicly reported by the Department of Public Health.”
The new legislation was supposed to “clarify this point,” said Reyes.
AB 654 was supposed to build upon last year’s AB 685, a bill that requires employers to notify workers of COVID-19 outbreaks and allows Cal-OSHA to fine employers and shut down workplaces for serious coronavirus violations and outbreaks.
But the legislation faced opposition from Assembly Republicans and business groups like the California Chamber of Commerce and Western Growers, among others.
The bill’s final version removed the individual worksite outbreak reporting requirement when it failed to get enough votes to pass the Assembly in June. There were 22 “no” votes, primarily Republican assemblymembers.
Assemblymember Jim Patterson, who represents parts of Fresno and Tulare counties, said he supported removing the requirement because it eliminated what he called the “public shaming” language.
“We’re not opposed to reporting,” said Patterson. “It was the excessive overreach of the bill.”
Reyes’ office didn’t comment on the removal of the language about individual worksite outbreak reporting requirements but did say that “We will continue to seek solutions that protect workers during the COVID-19 pandemic or any future pandemics.”
Assemblymember Adam Gray, D-Merced, also voted against the workplace reporting requirement. He could not be reached for comment this week.
Should California companies publicly report COVID outbreaks?
Padilla said that the lack of explicit workplace outbreak requirements should “concern” the general public and workers and that this data is crucial to keeping the community safe.
“We need the data to mitigate the spread of COVID in real-time, in particular in workplaces,” said Padilla. “We also need workplace data to inform the development of policies that can improve working conditions and potentially save worker lives.
“By prohibiting the publication of data that tells us where outbreaks are happening, we’re limiting our ability to understand the quickly changing and really dangerous virus,” said Padilla.
Padilla pointed to the COVID-19 outbreak at the Foster Farms plant in Livingston last year, where the plant had a 40% COVID-19 positivity rate. In a September 2020 Merced County Board of Supervisors meeting, health department officials confirmed this was over eight times higher than the COVID-19 positivity rate in Merced County at the time.
“It was eight times higher than the county’s own positivity rate, and still, they were pointing the finger at the community, saying ‘it’s the community spread,’” said Padilla.
Foster Farms responded to the comments on their COVID-19 response and outbreak reporting.
“Foster Farms has performed over 130,000 COVID-19 tests in California — more than 80,000 in Merced County — with an overall positivity rate of less than 1%, and has provided all of this data to the State of California,” said Ira Brill, vice president of communications for the poultry plant.
“Foster Farms has provided, and continues to provide, its workforce with information about COVID-19 and vaccinations in multiple languages, including Spanish and Punjabi. These are the facts,” Brill said.
Foster Farms wasn’t the only central San Joaquin Valley company to have its COVID protections scrutinized during the earliest months of the pandemic.
Last year, workers at Fresno’s Amazon warehouse criticized the company’s infection reporting policies, saying workers received only vague information about possible exposures and infection numbers.
According to an analysis by UC Merced, most workers who have died of COVID-19 in California’s top 10 high-risk industries were primarily from Latino and immigrant backgrounds. These industries include warehousing, agriculture, and food processing.
“I think the people in the state capital that were busy negotiating away the crucial provisions in the bill — that would have provided greater data and public awareness of the spread of COVID-19 — don’t share the same background as the low wage workers of color” who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, said Padilla.
She said she hopes to see another iteration of the bill that requires workplace outbreak data by industry, by county, by employer, and said this legislation is long overdue.
Gov. Gavin Newsom still needs to sign the bill. It wasn’t immediately clear when that might happen.
Melissa Montalvo is a reporter with The Fresno Bee and a Report for America corps member. This article is part of The California Divide, a collaboration among newsrooms examining income inequity and economic survival in California.
This story was originally published September 27, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "California companies can keep workplace COVID outbreaks secret. Here’s what happened."
