Union food-distribution workers striking across nation, reflecting push for better food-industry working conditions

Union workers at Hunts Point Terminal Produce Market in the Bronx, the world's largest wholesale produce market, recently staged a successful strike for safer working conditions and better pay during the pandemic. 

"The Hunts Point strike was part of a series of actions across the country by unionized food-distribution workers for higher pay and better workplace protections, both in general and specific to the pandemic," Amir Khafagy reports for the Food & Environment Reporting Network. "Led by the Teamsters, the push echoes the more spontaneous protests and general outcry that has arisen from other food-industry workers and their advocates—from meatpacking plants and farm fields to restaurants and food-delivery services—after the virus made it impossible to continue to ignore the neglect and abuse these 'essential' workers had long endured."

President Biden's Labor Department has just issued stronger worker-safety guidelines that call on employers to conduct a hazard analysis and implement measures such as masking and social-distancing to limit the spread of the coronavirus on the job, Chuck Abbott reports for FERN.