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HomeMy WebLinkAboutCORRESPONDENCE - Item #2COUNCIL AGENDA ITEMS — Pursuant to Santa Ana Charter Section 411, any member of the City Council may place items on the City Council Agenda to be considered by the City Council. Only action available to City Council is to provide direction to City Manager. 2. Discuss and consider directing City Manager to direct staff to prepare an ordinance or resolution requiring large grocers and pharmacies to provide hazard pay to their employees for a defined period of time during pandemic — Councilmember Phan and Mayor Sarmiento Name Comment - 01/12/202105:00 PM: (For) Derek Smith Support see attached letter M iT IT , RAVO ICE FOR WORKING CALIFORNIA 12.January 2021 To the Mayor and City Council in Santa Ana: Andrea Zinder President Matt Bell Secretary - Treasurer On behalf of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 324, and our 20,000 members in Los Angeles and Orange County, I am writing to express our support for Item number 2 on the January 121h Special City Council Meeting, which considers mandating hazard pay for Grocery and Drug retail workers. It has been made abundantly clear during this pandemic that our members play a critical role in providing necessary food, supplies and medicine to an anxious public. This has taken an enormous toll on our membership. Currently 2,063 of our members have been diagnosed with COVID-19, which represents around 10.4% of our local. Workers live in dread that each shift could be the one where they are exposed. Yet they go to work every day. The industry has been shameful in acknowledging this risk. While quick to publicly laud themselves as good employers in March by implementing a $2/hour "Hero Pay", they very quietly phased it out by June. Despite a surge of cases in the summer, and an even worse surge in December, virtually none of these employers reinstituted this pay. Some gave out gift cards for store credit, some did nothing at all. The Grocery and Drug industry have reaped record profits, and yet it refuses to recognize the importance of the employees that have made this possible. Therefore, it is imperative that the County steps in to ensure a basic standard of fairness and reinstate a hazard pay for these essential workers. We are grateful for the leadership of Mayor Sarmiento and Councilmember Phan on this issue. Sincerely, Derek Smith Political Director United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 324 8530 Stanton Ave., P.O. Box 5004, Buena Park, CA 90622-5004 • (714) 995-4601 • (800) 244-UFCW • Fax (714) 995-8214 • www.ufcw.org Orozco, Norma From: Tim Johnson <tjohnson@jlkrllp.com> Sent: Tuesday, January 12, 2021 6:00 PM To: eComment Cc: Sarmiento, Vicente; Penaloza, David; Mendoza, Nelida; Hernandez, Johnathan; Bacerra, Phil; Lopez, Jessie; Phan, Thai Subject: Special Agenda Items 1 & 2 Item 1. Thank you for considering putting forth a resolution with regards to the violence at our nation's capitol on January 61h. I urge this council to support the proclamation on behalf of the residents of the city. Our county is built around free peaceful speech and orderly transitions of power- these are pillars of our democracy and ones that our city should support. Item 2. Thank you for considering our essential workers in the grocery and pharmacy industries during the pandemic. Everyone is so very thankful for those who show up to work each day to provide needed services in our city including our grocery and pharmacy workers. However, I urge this council to pause on this item. There are so many unanswered items which need to be discussed and answered prior to directing staff on this item- especially as special meeting item which so many have not had an opportunity to provide input on or even digest what this would mean. Primarily, in order for me to support this I would suggest that at a minimum the following items would need to be adequately addressed: • Why only grocery and pharmacy workers? Are other workers not as important and deserving of increased pay? Are these two very specific industries the only ones that are putting their health on the line to provide for their families and provide service to the community? • What about other workers who are equally putting their health at risk to provide valuable services to our community such as: o Health care workers o Long Term Care / Assisted Living workers o Drug Store Workers outside of a pharmacy environment (i.e. CVS/Walgreens type non -pharmacy workers) o Workers at our city testing sites and likely soon to be vaccination sites o Restaurant workers- drive through operators, cashiers, cooks o Auto Repair shops o Construction Workers o City Service Workers • What constitutes "large" in this context? Based on square footage, number of employees, revenue ... the details matter. • What will the impact be to the business owners who are already struggling with increased costs? Will those costs be passed along to the consumer in increased prices? Our residents are already paying the highest sales taxes in the county so incremental costs should always be a concern to be addressed. • Is this a defacto increased minimum wage? Would it be an XX% increase to their pay? For example, 125% of regular pay? What is the right percentage to compensate them? • When would this hazard pay end? • Have you sought feedback from the community on this? • Have you sought feedback from the business community that would be impacted on this? We can all agree that it would be great for business owners to provide hazard pay to our grocery and pharmacy workers... no doubt about it. BUT, should our city be mandating this? If so, PLEASE fully provide feedback to the city manager so she and her staff can adequately provide a resolution to be discussed and approved by the council at a future meeting. Rosenbero;er GnfN P�.Nz #[w� nu Proudly part of the PKFglobaf family In©EM Tim Johnson, CPA Partner 0 (949)860-9892 8 (714)743-1065 0 tjohnson@jlkrllp.com 2601 Main Street, Suite 580, Irvine, CA 92614 0 See our latest business news and insights by clicking here This message (including any attachments) contains confidential information intended for a specific individual and purpose, and is protected by law. If you are not the intended recipient, you should delete this message. Any disclosure, copying, or distribution of this message, or the taking of any action based on it, is strictly prohibited. JLK Rosenberger is a California Limited Liability Partnership and a member firm of PKF International Limited, a family of legally independent member firms and does not accept any responsibility or liability for the actions or inactions on the part of any other individual member or correspondent firm or firms.