“Somos Esenciales”: Demanding Justice for Essential Workers in Wisconsin

Dozens of cars joined a press event in Echo Lake, Wisconsin, on June 18 to protest the deaths of two Wisconsin workers who continued going to work while ill with COVID because they couldn’t afford to lose their job or paychecks. Organized by the immigrant rights group Voces de La Frontera, the protest wound its way to the home of Representative Robin Vos, Speaker of the WIsconsin Assembly. Voces has called for his resignation for scapegoating immigrants and refusing to enact state legislation to protect all workers and their families from COVID-19.

A worker from Echo Lake Foods sent a statement about the company’s failure to keep its workforce safe, likely contributing to the death of Juan Manuel Reyes Valdez from COVID-19 on June 3. After workers complained about lack of social distancing and other protective measures, the National Guard was called in to provide testing for workers; 22 tested positive. The company sent those workers home to quarantine, but only for one week and without pay. They did not call for quarantine for the co-workers who had been exposed. 

“What happened to him could have happened to any one of the workers at Echo Lakes,” his co-worker said. “We want the company to recognize that we are human beings, not disposable objects for production. A worker who is producing food to feed others should not risk their lives or the life of a loved family member for lack of protection on the job and lack of paid sick days.” 

The group laid a wreath for Juan Manuel and another for Michael Jackson, a Milwaukee worker at Briggs and Stratton who had been organizing for safe working conditions there and died after working for weeks with COVID-19. Chance Zambor, a union leader at Briggs, also spoke at the rally: “Give corporations a choice between workers’ safety and profits, they’re going to choose profits every time. Change won’t come from the top. We gotta do it for ourselves, come together as workers and fight for our interests together.”

Echo Lake and Briggs and Stratton are among many employers nationwide that assign disciplinary points against workers who see a doctor; refuse to fully implement CDC/OSHA safety conditions; provide inadequate sick leave; and keep employees in the dark about workplace exposure to COVID-19. 

Voces Executive Director Christine Neumann-Ortiz called on these large corporations to immediately implement stronger protective measures before other lives are lost. Their current practice “dishonors the lives and dignity of workers in this industry,”  She also called on Speaker Vos to apologize for his racist statement that “immigrant culture” is what causes the virus to spread,  resign his leadership position and support state legislation to protect the lives of workers and their families throughout Wisconsin.

Joining the speakers was Blanca Hernandez, Action Leader with 9to5, National Association of Working Women, whose mother had to take unpaid leave when exposed to COVID. “Like most people, we believe no one should lose their life or their livelihood in order to keep their job when they’re sick or need to care for an ill loved one,” Blanca said. She noted that Rep. Vos was part of the legislative leadership that stole Milwaukee paid sick days’ win nine years ago. “Milwaukee workers should have been earning paid sick days for nine years, and other cities would have followed suit. If that was the case, this pandemic and the stark rate of unemployment would look very different.”

Blanca called on state legislators to overturn the preemption of local paid sick days, pass statewide policies, and support the Heroes Act to end loopholes in federal emergency coronavirus legislation that exclude companies like Echo Lakes Food and Briggs and Stratton who employ more than 500 people. “It shouldn’t take a pandemic to remind us that our health as individuals and as communities depends on everyone being healthy,” she said. 

The rally ended with a statement from U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin: “We have repeatedly told the administration that we cannot combat this pandemic if we don’t take action to protect all those workers on the front line.”