WEC Staff

This week’s update featured labor and employment attorneys Rosemarie Cipparulo and David Tykulsker discussing whistleblower protections in New Jersey, including the Conscientious Employees Protection Act (CEPA). 130 participants joined us for the discussion. Rose and David gave us an overview of the law and discussed its relationship to other available remedies and protections. We learned: that to qualify for CEPA protection the specifics of the correction required must be first submitted in writing to one’s employer or agency; that the situation to be corrected must be in violation of an existing law or binding regulation (such as the governor’s recent executive orders or the new law prohibiting the dismissal of employees who miss work for medically-recommended COVID-related reasons); that CEPA specifically protects a complainant or whistleblower against retaliation; that it protects both private and public sector workers; and, that its protections must be invoked within one year of the last retaliatory act suffered. We also learned how union grievance procedures and collective actions can often get results much quicker than a whistleblower complaint; and, that while a CEPA complaint supersedes a union grievance, an NLRB, OSHA, PEOSH, or other official complaint can be filed concurrently.

Yana van der Meulen Rodgers, Director of The Center for Women and Work at Rutgers University spoke about a report she co-authored about the causes for PPE shortages in the U.S, Personal Protective Equipment Shortages during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Structural Weaknesses and a House on Fire. Structural flaws in the market for US medical supplies and equipment has contributed to extreme shortages of PPE for health care practitioners during the COVID-19 outbreak. To avoid continuing shortages, we need to change the incentives for healthcare facilities to acquire and for domestic firms to produce the required supplies. We heard from Laura Kenny, Assistant Regional Administrator for Technical Support, US-DOL, OSHA and Steve Kaplan, Deputy Regional Administrator, US-DOL, OSHA about the importance of employers conducting risk assessments, how Executive Orders from the State of NJ are not enforceable by OSHA, and facemasks are not considered PPE. Since the COVID-19 crisis began the region has received approximately 600 complaints and conducted 55 fatality investigations. More than 220 participants joined the webinar.

For the third webinar in this series and were honored to welcome Deborah Cornavaca, Deputy Chief of Staff for Governor Murphy. Ms. Cornavaca spent the entire hour with us for a virtual question and answer session regarding safety measures taken by Governor Murphy to prevent the spread of COVID19 including recently signed Executive Order 122 that requires certain essential businesses to take additional safety measures. We’d like to thank Ms. Cornavaca for joining us, and for offering her enormous wealth of insight on our state government’s efforts to mitigate this crisis and her willingness to answer so many questions and listen to the concerns of COVID-19 frontline workers.  We’d also like to thank all of the 175+ participants who joined us, and who are putting in the work every day to fight this disaster- either on the frontlines or by social distancing at home.

From the current shortage of PPE to the coming hospital bed shortage, we heard what it is like for employees to go to work during this pandemic. Some employers have not implemented or enforced social distancing guidelines or provided proper PPE, while other employers have enacted stronger safety and health measures. We discussed best practices employers can implement, victories won by unions to improve worker protections and what needs to be done to protect workers and their families.  There were 100 attendees that participated. We heard from: Darren A. Spielma, PhD, Executive Director of The Senator Walter Rand Institute for Public Affairs (WRI) at Rutgers-Camden and an author of Timing County Hospital Bed Shortfall during COVID-19. Barbara Rosen, Nurse Educator, and Vice President of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees – AFT about Protecting those Who Care. Helen Polizzi Ireland, Director of Community Affairs and Education, United Food and Commercial Workers Local 360 and UFCW Representative Michael O’Brien about the concerns and demands of grocery store workers. Dave Hancock, Warehouse Campaign Director, Laundry, Distribution and Food Service Joint Board, Workers United, SEIU and warehouse worker Maria Ortiz about some Best Practices and Ongoing Concerns of Warehouse Workers. Lou Kimmel, Executive Director, New Labor, a [...]