{"id":28232,"date":"2020-07-29T12:58:13","date_gmt":"2020-07-29T18:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28232"},"modified":"2020-07-29T13:04:41","modified_gmt":"2020-07-29T19:04:41","slug":"lawmakers-reject-introduction-of-worker-protection-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/?p=28232","title":{"rendered":"Lawmakers reject introduction of worker protection bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

A motion to suspend the Legislature\u2019s rules to permit the introduction of a new bill was unsuccessful July 29.<\/p>\n

\"Sen.
Sen. Tony Vargas<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Traditionally, new bills may be introduced only during the first 10 days of the legislative session. Omaha Sen. Tony Vargas moved to suspend the rules to introduce a measure that would have implemented new workplace protections for employees of meat processing facilities in response to the coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n

Vargas said the pandemic has disproportionately impacted the state\u2019s minority population, who make up a large segment of meat processing employees. Of the approximately 25,000 people who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Nebraska, he said, nearly 5,000 are meat processing plant employees.<\/p>\n

Calls for improved worker treatment and health and safety measures, however, largely have gone unanswered, Vargas said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you don\u2019t see the urgency in this and understand why this situation demands us to act now, then I\u2019m at a loss,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is exactly why this rule exists.\u201d<\/p>\n

Omaha Sen. Justin Wayne spoke in support of the motion, saying lawmakers need to provide all community members a forum to discuss the pandemic\u2019s impact.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is about all of our communities building trust with our government,\u201d Wayne said. \u201cThat when there is a major pandemic and it\u2019s disproportionately hitting an industry, that we can at least listen and figure out a way to respond.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gothenburg Sen. Matt Williams also supported the motion to suspend the rules. The pandemic has drastically changed every aspect of daily life for many in Nebraska, he said, and that warrants a discussion of working conditions in critical industries like meat processing.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hearing we would have on this would allow the workers to share their stories and allow the industry to share the specific things that they\u2019ve done \u2026 to address these issues,\u201d Williams said.<\/p>\n

Sen. Tom Brewer of Gordon expressed concerns about the potential impact of increased regulations on an industry that already has been impacted negatively by the pandemic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen the packing plants closed last spring and things ground to a halt, all of a sudden the feedlots weren\u2019t able to move the cattle, the sale barns weren\u2019t able to buy the cattle and ranchers weren\u2019t able to sell the cattle,\u201d Brewer said. \u201cIf we do something that grinds the system to a halt [again], life for a good share of Nebraskans will grind to a halt.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brainard Sen. Bruce Bostelman suggested that lawmakers instead hold an interim hearing, which he said would allow them to take the public hearing process into the communities most directly impacted.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m afraid that if we have a hearing [in Lincoln], we\u2019ll lose the opportunity to understand how it affects [people] in their community,\u201d Bostelman said.<\/p>\n

The motion to suspend the rules failed on a 28-10 vote. Thirty votes were needed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A motion to suspend the Legislature\u2019s rules to permit the introduction of a new bill was unsuccessful July 28.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28231,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[184],"class_list":["post-28232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sen-tony-vargas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Vargas7-29-20a.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28232"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28232\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28234,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28232\/revisions\/28234"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/update.legislature.ne.gov\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}