Reviewing Our Year-long Partnership with Brockton

Since the very beginning of the pandemic, MassCOSH’s Programs and Policy Director Al Vega has been working closely with our allies and members like the Brockton Workers Alliance, the Mass. Nurses Association, SEIU Local 888, and the Justice Center of Southeast MA to help the City of Brockton strategize to better protect their residents/workers and the public from COVID-19.

As part of the Worker Safety Initiative sub-committee of the Brockton Health Equity Task Force, MassCOSH has been working directly with the Brockton mayor’s office, city advocates, and representatives to ensure the most vulnerable understand how to avoid COVID-19 infection and how to access information on vaccines. Highlights of this work include a well-attended webinar for 20+ businesses on how to protect their employees and the public when reopening, creating and disseminating multilingual fact sheets on COVID-19 safety and vaccine access, especially for Cape Verdean, Haitian & Latinx communities, a texting-based hotline for workers to anonymously submit workplace safety and health violations, and organizing a roundtable for vaccine providers to discuss vaccine access and equity for essential and immigrant workers.

MassCOSH and city officials admit there is still more that must be done to protect workers and to reach those hardest-hit communities to increase vaccination rates, but progress is being made. Earlier this month, MassCOSH was notified that Brockton is looking to hire a vaccine coordinator to streamline the city’s efforts. MassCOSH looks forward to a continued partnership with the city to help protect workers and eventually bring an end to the negative impacts they have experienced during the pandemic.