Governor Brown, enforce social distancing before it is too late!

Governor Brown

Essential employees are not disposable, but we are being treated as such. Large retailers like Fred Meyer are not enforcing recommendations to protect workers. Some employers like Safeway and Albertsons are limiting the number of customers in stores to half of what is allowed by law and that has worked because they only sell groceries.

But when retailers sell clothes, fertilizer, and televisions that strategy is just lip service as customers ignore those departments and crowd into the grocery department. Certain aisles get so crowded with customers that traffic jams result, customers are right next to each other, and the virus spreads to workers and other customers. When retailers allow free-for-alls, the virus gets a free-for-all too and the cost will be measured in lives.

"Only about 50% of customers are wearing masks, and many are coughing without covering their mouths." Chelsea - Fred Meyer

"I have literally had a customer within a foot of me as she is coughing and hacking without a mask on! Jennifer." - Fred Meyer

"Everyone I work with are having nightmares, can’t sleep well, and are stressed and on edge." Fredrick -Safeway

"Almost every day I have customers leaning in so close, if I didn't have sleeves on, I would be able to feel them breath." Kayla - Fred Meyer
Petition by
Miles Eshaia
Miles Eshaia
Lake Oswego, Oregon

To: Governor Brown
From: [Your Name]

We are essential workers in retail spaces and we are the customers who stand in support of the essential employees in our community. In order to protect everyone’s health, we, the undersigned, call on the Governor of Oregon to enforce her order of social distancing by requiring:

● anyone entering a retail space must wear a mask,
● customer capacity be based on the size of the grocery department because that’s where the unsafe crowding is happening,
● any grocery retail space over 8,000 square feet must have at least two social distancing monitors working at any time, to enforce masks and social distancing, and
● offer Oregon State tax credits for employers who establish and continue hazard pay through the governor’s order.

Governor Brown. Please listen to the voices of the essential employees standing in the gap between the pandemic and chaos.