​National Agenda for Worker Safety and Health: Rights and Protections We Need Now

On February 3, MassCOSH joined with National COSH and over 100 worker groups to release the National Agenda for Worker Safety and Health. Developed by workers, unions, safety advocates, and worker organizations, the agenda brings together ideas, based on real experience in our workplaces, to confront the COVID-19 pandemic and other hazards in our workplaces.

Around the country, and here in Massachusetts, there have been multiple COVID-19 outbreaks among retail, food processing, childcare, nursing home workers, and many others. Until now, the response to the pandemic from employers and our government has been a catastrophic failure. The research is clear: workplaces remain key sites where the virus can spread rapidly, underscoring that workplace health and safety is public health and safety. These unsafe working conditions are in are not inevitable, they are the outcomes of egregious actions by employers who have not been held accountable and a workplace health and safety infrastructure that has been running on empty for decades.

The Biden Administration has taken positive first steps, but more needs to be done. The National Agenda provides ideas, tools, and resources for a bold plan to build worker power and make our workplaces safer. Check out the agenda here and follow MassCOSH as we join with our partners to work to ensure that all workers return home to their families alive and well.