Episode 9: How are Virginia workers responding to recent Covid-19 spikes?

Well, we’re in May now. It’s been a month and a half since everything started closing and authorities urged social distancing.

But work hasn’t stopped for people working in essential industries – health care, of course. But also grocery stores, fire and police services, construction, buses, meat packing, and more.

That doesn’t mean the work is always safe. Around the country, there have been more than 150 labor actions like walk-outs or strikes. Protesting conditions that the workers feel are unsafe. That includes several labor actions here in Virginia – from workers in Naval Yards in Hampton Roads to poultry plants in the Shenandoah Valley.

Nathan Moore: This is Bold Dominion, an explainer for state politics in a changing Virginia. I’m Nathan Moore.

[music bed]

Well, we’re in May now. It’s been a month and a half since everything started closing and authorities urged social distancing. The novel coronavirus continues to circulate around Virginia and around the U.S., even as Governor Ralph Northam is moving to reopen certain kinds of businesses in the next week. But work hasn’t stopped for people working in essential industries – health care, of course. But also grocery stores, fire and police services, construction, buses, meat packing, and more. That doesn’t mean the work is always safe. Around the country, there have been more than 150 labor actions like walk-outs or strikes. Protesting conditions that the workers feel are unsafe. That includes several labor actions here in Virginia – from workers in Naval Yards in Hampton Roads to poultry plants in the Shenandoah Valley.

Peter Galuszka: Why should we put our lives--say a clerk at a grocery store--why should I put my own life on the line for, what, $8 an hour? And I mean, this is a mobilizing aspect of things.

NM: That’s journalist Peter Galuszka. We’ll hear more from him in a few minutes. First, we turn to Sarah Vogelsong. She’s a reporter with Virginia Mercury and has written several recent articles about Covid-19 outbreaks in meat processing plants. In Virginia, we have concentrations of these plants in the Eastern shore and also in the Shenandoah Valley. During this pandemic, these plants have become coronavirus hotspots, and cases keep climbing.

Sarah Vogelsong: The workers at some of these plants started to become concerned that the numbers that they were hearing from their managers were below the actual case incidents in their plants. And they have started to voice those concerns. Subsequently, the Northam administration also began to become worried and Northam, with the governor of Maryland and Delaware, had asked the federal government to step in and provide some help and subsequently, the CDC sent teams to the region and they are now investigating just how extensively COVID-19 has spread through these plants.

NM: What are we finding so far? As far as the spread of it?

SV: It is a little difficult to say because the Northam administration has interpreted the state code to mean that they cannot provide specific information about how many cases are in a given facility. But having said that, we can see that there are a large number of cases in Accomack County, which is where both of these two chicken processing plants are on the eastern shore. Hospital administrators--The single hospital on the eastern shore have also told reporters from the Washington Post that there are about 180 cases between those two facilities. That was the count a couple of days ago. So it is almost certainly higher at this point.

NM: But what are the workers saying? How are they getting attention?

SV: Um, the workers have started to get attention, I think over about the past two weeks, mostly, largely by speaking to media. And there's been a lot of fear that I've heard from employees about speaking out publicly, because they're afraid that they'll lose their jobs if there seemed to be criticizing any of the management in the plants.

NM: And workers that these plants tend to also be immigrants coming from more vulnerable backgrounds and a lot of cases is that right?

SV: Yes, there is a high immigrant population that work in the plants. They're also--particularly I would say, on the eastern shore area--isn't a huge glut of other jobs for people to turn to.

NM: What are we what are we seeing as far as the response from management from the companies to the concerns of these workers?

SV: What I have heard from companies spokespeople, who have also not provided large amounts of information, is that they are mostly focusing their response on CDC guidance to provide personal protective equipment for workers. Most of the large companies have been rolling out, like, plastic shields that they can put between workers on these lines who have traditionally stood very close to each other and and certainly within six feet of each other. But the rollouts of those shields and measures have been, you know, they take time to happen.

And so some of the workers that I've spoken to have said that maybe one department are several departments in their plant might have those shields in place, but other departments do not. There have been groups that have urged the state to step up and for the administration to take a more proactive role in protecting workers in these plants by passing emergency regulations that can be enforced, rather than just relying on guidelines. All of the federal guidance so far in poultry processing plants, as it relates to the Coronavirus have just been guidelines, which means that the companies are encouraged to follow them, but there isn't actually a penalty or necessarily a framework in place to assess their adherence.

NM: So we've got the issues of these plants having these hotspots of COVID-19 infection, but then now federal orders requiring that they stay open. I mean, this is a gonna be a tricky balance to maintain worker safety while you know having the long arm of the federal law telling it to do its thing.

SV: Yeah, and I think that that is a concern that I'm hearing from some advocates is that they want to make sure that there is a balance between ensuring that the industry stays open, but also ensuring that worker safety and worker protections are not sacrificed to that aim. That there is also a framework built in there to make sure that these human beings can remain safe and that their communities can as well.

NM: That’s Virginia Mercury reporter Sarah Vogelsong. Read more at VirginiaMercury.com. Stay with us–we’re back in just a moment with journalist Peter Galuszka.

[fade up midtro]

You’re listening to Bold Dominion, a state politics explainer for a changing Virginia. Visit us online at BoldDominion.org. Have a friend who’s trying to figure out Virginia state politics? Tell them about this show. And then subscribe in Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever fine podcasts are served up. Bold Dominion is a member of the Virginia Audio Collective, online at VirginiaAudio.org. Drill down on Charlottesville news analysis with our podcast Charlottesville Soundboard. And check out our newest member -- Charlottesville Quarantine Report, which looks at how one town and the state overall are responding to the COVID-19 crisis. Check out these and many more at Virginia Audio.org.

[fade out midtro]

Over the last month, there have been more than 150 labor actions around the country – walk-outs, sick- outs, strikes. Largely wildcat labor actions without union backing… just workers who feel their conditions are unsafe.

That has included at least five labor actions in Virginia – from poultry workers outside Harrisonburg to bus drivers in Richmond to workers at an assisted living home in Northern Virginia. Peter Galuszka is a journalist based in the Richmond area who has covered Virginia business, politics, and news for four decades. He explains what these labor actions mean in Virginia.

PG: So there's several things going on here. First off, to be clear, to be sure, Virginia is a low union state for many reasons--that it's by design. And it's been that way for many years. In terms--I think the latest figures I've seen, federal figures, Virginia's like maybe 4+ percent unionized. Which is way low, down near the Texas level. So that tells you something--that the union and union workers are not very strong to begin with. We have a right to work state, which means you don't have to join a union if you don't want to. And the business classes have prided themselves for decades, especially in like textile workers and cigarette workers and people like that, for not having unions so that they can be exploited, that they will make less money. So I mean, this is all been going on. And now that you've got kind of an emergency situation, where workers in some ways hold the upper hand because they're needed, they're, you know, kind of wielding their muscle--what little muscle they have--a little bit.

NM: Is it working? Are you know, when they're when these labor actions, are businesses responding and saying, Yeah, we're gonna make those changes.

PG: Well, I'm not so sure it's working here because we don't have any really massive strikes yet. We do have one indirectly, okay? And if you go back to Smithfield Foods Which was a major food and pork producer down in southeastern Tidewater area. They were for years, one of the largest, if not the largest pork producer in the country. In the United States, they're chiefly located in the Midwest, like South Dakota and Iowa. And in the last few years, they've been bought by a Chinese group called WH Group, which is a giant Chinese food maker. But there's been real problems, serious problems, especially in Iowa, especially in South Dakota, where, you know, very quickly, dozens and dozens of workers there were exposed and got the COVID-19 virus, and some plants have been shut down. It was sort of a catastrophe, because these are very, very large scale pork and other producers. And there's been talk that in the near term, we might see shortages of beef and meat.

NM: Meanwhile, here on May 1, last Friday, there's been a lot of labor actions from coordinated labor action around the country happening with Target, Instacart, Whole Foods, Amazon.

PG: Right. Exactly. And that's, that's not really new. Because I remember when when the whole thing when the pandemic really started rolling away. I know that Amazon workers, for example, it's clear that Amazon is going to be playing a critical role in this because they deliver. And that actually means you don't have to go out into the store and you know, and you don't have to expose yourself. But at the same time, you can get the virus for several days, apparently, from the surface of an Amazon Prime package. And of course, there were big complaints early on, especially in New York, about Amazon not providing workers with serious enough sanitation and not social distancing enough, etc, etc. Those complaints are still going on. Amazon has started a big public publicity campaign in various newspapers to say that "No no, we're doing it okay." And other ones are Instacart, same thing. A number of companies have really been wondering what they're doing. And at the same time things are starting to open.

NM: Yeah, they are. Let's kind of segue into that. Governor Ralph Northam, who's been the sort of cautious, steady handed doctor and all this is now saying, you know, let's--we can go ahead and reopen a few things like like dentist offices, and maybe hairdressers where there's not a lot of people at once. Take me through what's going on and how Governor Northam has been performing.

PG: Well, he was criticized greatly, especially by people on the right for you know, being everything from incompetent to a fascist, which is kind of--that's kind of a bit of a range. You know, you can't be all those things. But in any event, he did get a slow start after--compared especially to Larry Hogan, the republican governor of Maryland--but recently he's been very judicious and he's gotten a lot of high praise for you know, not going too far, he's not shutting down the borders to out of state people without a state license plates or anything like that. But he's been, you know, cautious. And he did, for example, stop hospitals from having elective surgery and did shut down things such as dental parlors and hairdressers and the like.

Well, I think it's as of as of this Friday, he's reopening hospitals to elective surgeries because actually, some hospitals were actually, incredibly, they were laying people off at the time of the pandemic because they just did not have enough, you know, regular routine normal, you know, elective surgeries and procedures going on, were losing money. That's coming to an end. Dental offices, I believe open Monday. Mine opens--because I have a little tooth problem that I hope to get fixed soon, I couldn't do it for about a week--And also, I mean, I think everybody looks pretty shaggy, and so I have a close friend who's a hairdresser and I know she said that when she finally gets to open it's going to be nuts. So, you know, there's a lot of pent-up stuff coming and this does not mean it's over by a long shot.

NM: Right and I know here in Charlottesville, the UVA Health System did pretty severe layoffs and furloughs and salary cuts for everybody. I mean, it's a lot of hurt across the system. They're losing $3 million a day. So I don't even know if opening back up for elective surgeries is gonna stop that outflow of bloodletting.

PG: Well, this is the whole heart of the problem, whether you have a W shaped recovery is a V shaped recovery, what kind of what is it? I mean--

NM: Tell me what that means. What do those letters mean in terms of the shape?

PG: Well that would mean that--a W would be that you, you go way up. And then of course, after you peak, you come way down again, you know, you start, you start being real active in the economy, and that's too soon, so you go up again, and then you go down again. The V is sort of the same concept, but a much quicker, slower comeback and then all of a sudden you shoot up and then number of infections. I've been reading a book, which I should have read about a month and a half ago. The influenza book by John Barry. It's about the--it's really the Kansas flu. It's not the Spanish flu, but it was in 1918. And all the things that the United States and the rest of the world had to go through that. And it's almost like a mirror image. It's like, you just change the dates and it's the same. I recommend that to anybody who wants to get an e-book. It's great.

NM: What's the title of that again?

PG: The deadly influenza or something like that. And it was written about maybe 15 years ago, by John M. Berry, who's a known historian, writer, and it's about the 1918--what was called the Spanish Flu, but was actually started in Kansas at some army camps during World War I, and quickly spread throughout the world. It came back in waves, by the way, I mean, goes down and it comes up, goes down, goes up, and killed a lot of people.

NM: And it was a couple years all together, wasn't it?

PG: Yeah, it was, was 1917-18 It kind of died out in 1918.

NM: Yeah. I want to talk a little bit more about Ralph Northam, you wrote in Style Weekly sort of assessing his performance as governor through all this. And I liked how you opened up that article talking about how this is probably the biggest challenge any Virginia Governor's faced since, you know, school desegregation.

PG: Yeah, I believe that. I mean, you know, who am I to say that? No one really, but still, I think that's true when you think about it. To go before that, and you have obviously the Civil War, that's the biggest thing. But in modern Virginia history, I think the whole idea of how the state mishandled integration with massive resistance was a very momentous kind of decision that really, you know, colored the state's politics for decades to come.

 And I think this is another case where you're going to see how Ralph Northam does this depends on the speed and the efficacy of the recovery and whether this will happen again, and you know, since there's a dearth of leadership by President Donald Trump, all the state governors like Northam are having to really come into the breech step up to the plate, all that stuff.

 And so far, he seems to be doing a pretty good job. And he's has a great deal of critics. I mean, the howls from the right wing are pretty strong. But the fact is, he's got really good--there's only been one poll so far. But he's done very well in it, 76% approval. And that's, I know, people do go up in times of crisis, but that's still pretty good. And he has had a very, very successful legislative career so far, because he has been able to manage the first truly progressive legislation in years here.

NM: I want to talk about--kind of ping to that that part on federal-state relations you mentioned, you know, Donald Trump's pretty terrible mishandling of the crisis from the national level. It's almost like the federal government, they're trying to like, squeeze it out so much they can be drowned in the bathtub and just leaves all the leadership and any kind of social welfare to the states at this point.

PG: Let me give you an example of what happened.

A few weeks ago, Northam signed a popular piece of legislation that would require background checks on handguns, and would also restrict them to one purchase a month, which is--a number of states do that as well. Well, Donald Trump sent out a tweet storm saying "Liberate Virginia! Protect your Second Amendment Rights." And the next day, Northam was on a national TV show. And they asked him about this and he says, "Now's not the time for Twittering, we've got better things to do." And that was just a great answer. So if only more people would do that we might be better off.

NM: You know, in America since the New Deal, there's been this kind of compact between the federal government and the States and the New Deal was an era when the federal government got a lot more powerful, a lot stronger, and a lot more concerned with sort of the social welfare of citizens. And, you know, there's kind of an agreement in a way that when states got in trouble, when states needed something, the federal government was there to help. That second half seems to be eroding pretty rapidly under the Trump regime. What do we make of this going forward?

PG: That's a great question because it goes back to World War II, because, you know, there was a great great deal of federal spending throughout the United States especially in the south, which at that time was pretty poor place with pellagra and, you know, Jim Crow and everything else. And yet, you've had, you know, thousands upon thousands of dollars going into the military sector. Into building you know, camps and naval bases and airfields, etc.

 And, this kind of carried forward with FDR, then of course with LBJ, and even when I started in journalism in North Carolina in the early 1970s, I mean, the whole issue in these little counties was how do we get federal money? How do we get federal money? Because it was a pretty poor part of the state. And so this has gone on and on and on. And this has sort of been the, the agreement.

And now Trump is just sort of ending it. And he's saying, "That's not my responsibility, you know, you do it." And so it's kind of an anti-federalism or new form of federalism that I quite don't understand. But I don't know how long--you know, hopefully, Trump will last that long, and they'll have someone more reasonable and adult in office, and maybe we'll we'll really find our way then. But you're raising interesting questions, you know, big government is now good again, regulation is now good again, you know, states are now powerful again, I still haven't had time to figure that all out. But there's some very fundamental changes in the last say 40-50 years.

NM: I mean, let's circle it back. And I don't want to get too much into conjecture. But I mean, if we bring it back to some of the workers and some of the people on the ground here in Virginia, what's this kind of shift gonna mean?

PG: Well, it's an interesting thing. And I think part of it is, in fact, regional. Because--just in my own life, I've worked mostly in the South, although I've worked in the Midwest and the Northeast and overseas. And there's always been this feeling in Virginia and places like North Carolina, that you're lucky to have a job. And that's changing. You go up, you go to Chicago, or I want to work or New York City, don't it's a different attitude. I mean, you know, actually, labor unions there are respected and they're considered part of the partnership. Here they're not. And so it's just gonna, you know, as Virginia changes further, more people move in, and more people feel empowered, like, "Why should we put our lives say, you know,  a clerk at a grocery store, why should I put my life on the line for, what, $8 an hour and somebody's making a lot of money selling extra food?" And I mean, this is a mobilizing aspect of things. They could keep it under control--the bosses could--some time ago, but maybe not anymore. So we'll see. We'll see what happens.

NM: Peter Galuszka is a journalist based in the Richmond area. He’s been covering Virginia business, politics, and news for four decades. Thanks to him and also to journalist Sarah Vogelsong, who spoke to us via Skype. My name’s Nathan Moore, and I’m the host of Bold Dominion. Huge thanks to our producers this week, Aaryan Balu and Sabrina Moore. Find this show online at BoldDominion.org. Go ahead and subscribe… it’s just a click away. Keep social distancing, and I’ll talk with you again in two weeks!