Four years after the coronavirus pandemic, the N.C. Department of Labor has chosen not to adopt new infectious disease rules for farms and construction companies. Now workers rights organizations are responding.
The petitions asked for the creation of rules to require masking, personal protective equipment and social distancing standards for work sites, employee housing quarters, and buses or other vehicles used to transport workers.
Now NC State AFL-CIO President MaryBe McMillan is asking North Carolina Labor Commissioner Josh Dobson to reconsider that decision. She said,” We cannot call workers ‘essential’ and continue to treat them as expendable.”
