GREEN BAY, Wis. (NBC 26) -- As many celebrate Labor Day with a shortened work week, unions reflect on a totally new fight for workplace safety in the face of coronavirus.
Much of that fight was felt at the JBS-Packerland meatpacking plant in Green Bay, where workers saw the airborne disease spread rapidly due to the plant's refrigeration.
Jim Ridderbush works at JBS-Packerland and is the vice president of Local 1470 UFCW. Ridderbush estimates that he and his immediate family contracted coronavirus in April.
"Well being an essential worker, it was just tough to get up every morning and go in to the plant knowing that everyone else was staying home," Ridderbush said. "And all of our coworkers, a lot of our coworkers that were sick, the lines speeds got turned way down, so it was down to crawling, where we could hardly keep it operating."
"They had to go to work and not be certain really how safe it was and how it would affect them and their family," said Dave Wadle, community service liasion between Brown County United Way and Greater Green Bay.
Without the ability to hold their usual in person union meetings because of the pandemic, there was a lot of uncertainty around what safety precautions to throw the union behind. Organizers say the only precedent they could reference was from previous flu breakouts, like swine flu and H1N1.
"We do have OSHA heath and safety standards that protect workers, but unfortunately there's no standard that protects from a pandemic," Ridderbush said. "There will be in the future I hope, if we elect the right people."
Today, the Greater Green Bay Labor Council and AFL-CIO put on a drive-thru food drive in place of their annual Bay Beach barbecue fundraiser to follow coronavirus precautions. Steve McFarlane, president of the Greater Green Bay Labor Council, estimates that volunteers gathered nearly one ton of canned and nonperishable goods that will go to local food banks and shelters.
