After pushback from officials, Cooper halts executive order to protect agricultural workers
Weeks after a public commitment to issue a new executive order with sweeping labor protections for vulnerable agricultural workers in the COVID-19 pandemic, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office said they couldn’t follow through, citing pushback from state officials.
The decision was communicated to the N.C. Farmworker Advocacy Network, a coalition of organizations, which has demanded worker safety measures since the start of the pandemic and had been in conversation with state health officials and the governor’s office. It was first reported by Spanish language outlets Enlace Latino NC and Qué Pasa.
“We are told the governor has rescinded his commitment, largely based on pushback from the Department or Labor and (the Department of) Agriculture, which has claimed it is not interested in enforcing these kinds of safety regulations,” said a news release from the coalition. “...The Department of Health and Human Services (said) that such an order would impede progress made between the agencies and companies to ensure cooperation.”
NCFAN denounced these reasons as not being “true or valid,” while Cooper’s office told The News & Observer in an email that disagreement with stakeholders kept the governor from issuing the order.
“Protecting agriculture and meat processing workers is a high priority,” said Dory MacMillan, a spokesperson. “While the governor and public health officials have had success on increasing some safety protocols and outbreak reporting, there remains significant disagreement among growers, state labor officials and workers about overall solutions.”
“These entities must cooperate to protect our workers and their families,” MacMillan said. “The governor and his administration are pushing growers and companies to protect workers and they are still working on the most effective solutions make sure that happens.”
As the coronavirus pandemic dealt a blow to the largely Latino immigrant agricultural workforce in North Carolina’s fields and meat processing plants, organizations sounded alarms for months and urged the state to respond, culminating in a virtual August town hall where the executive order was discussed.
Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein promised cooperation on these concerns and others ahead of November elections. Hundreds of people from Latino and immigrant labor rights organizations attended the town hall.
The executive order
“We thought having an executive order would still be really valuable in terms of protecting workers lives because even if the Department of Labor is not enforcing it and the rules were mandatory ... not all employers, but a lot of employers would start complying,” said Clermont Ripley, a senior staff attorney at the Caroline Justice Center, an NCFAN coalition member, in an interview.
Coalition members were told by Cooper’s office that the order would do “more harm than good” due to the pushback, Ripley said.
The executive order is similar to one issued in Wisconsin and another recently issued in Michigan enforcing worker protections. The provisions of the drafted North Carolina order more greatly enforced social distancing workplace measures, heightened sanitation, proactive COVID-19 screening and improved access to testing for workers on farms and processing plants.
“For farmworkers in migrant labor camps the clinics and the vendors that are offering testing, they’ve gone to agricultural employers and said, ‘Hey, can we come bring this testing to your housing, to your workers?’ And agricultural employers have said no,” Ripley said.
The state has not mandated widespread testing at meatpacking plants and farms. Meatpacking workers instead have been tested by their employers after having COVID-19 outbreaks at their plants and agricultural workers have had to rely on local farmworker clinics to coordinate testing only after outbreaks or symptoms were reported.
Outbreaks at meat packing plants and farmworker housing complexes appeared across the state since the pandemic began.
As of last month, cases across meatpacking plants in the state rose past 3,000 in more than 37 clusters in at least 20 counties, according to DHHS, which also reports that outbreaks in immigrant farmworker housing camps have topped 1,700.
After The N&O reported of an outbreak at a Christmas tree farm of over 112 farmworkers on Aug. 18, the state’s agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler issued a letter stating that “all agricultural workers, including, but not limited to Christmas tree farm workers, are critical infrastructure workers” according to federal Department of Labor and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines.
Workers who have been exposed to individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 but are asymptomatic are recommended to still go to work, according to those CDC guidelines.
State officials’ opposition
“[The Governor’s office] had already gotten feedback from a lot of stakeholders about the executive order and there were people who were certainly opposed, but they were going to do it anyways,” said Ripley.
Opposition from the state’s Department of Labor and the Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services was communicated in letters provided to The N&O that were directed to the governor’s office in late August in the days before the decision to rescind plans for the executive order.
“As you know, I oppose any order that would add new mandates for employers in agriculture or other food processing industries,” wrote N.C. Department of Labor Commissioner Cherie Berry. “This EO, as currently drafted, represents overregulation of industries that are already facing tremendous hardship and that, in general, have shown a willingness to voluntarily comply with CDC guidance to protect their workers.”
Through July 15, the Department of Labor received 75 complaints and referrals related to COVID-19 and the meat packing industry but none prompted a site visit to facilities, The N&O reported previously.
Berry pointed out that should Cooper issue the order, his office should not “publicly overstate” NCDOL’s enforcement of the order.
As for the Department of Agriculture & Consumer Services, they felt the order would be issued too late when the situation was being handled.
“To issue the proposed Executive Order at this time seems to ignore the progress which has been made and the lines of communication that have been opened,” said agriculture commissioner Steve Troxler. “NCDA&CS does not see the wisdom or the need for this proposed Executive Order. The proposed Executive Order seeks to provide a solution for a problem that is already being solved. If this Executive Order had been proposed two months ago, it may have been relevant.”
The N.C. Congress of Latino Organizations, which organized the virtual townhall with Cooper last month, told The N&O that they reached out to his office after learning the news from local Spanish media.
“We have called the governor to meet with the community again so that he can keep his promise or to explain clearly why he made that decision and how he intends to help protect the most vulnerable workers of the state,” said Ivan Parra, the NCCLO’s director.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story misstated a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendation. Asymptomatic workers who have been exposed to COVID-19, not those who have tested positive for the virus, are recommended to continue working.
This story was originally published September 10, 2020 at 6:00 AM with the headline "After pushback from officials, Cooper halts executive order to protect agricultural workers."
