Amid Omicron Surge, Portland City Council Ends Hazard Pay For Workers

By Lauren McCauley, Maine Beacon:

Amid a dramatic uptick in COVID-19 spread, the Portland City Council voted 8-1 Monday evening to repeal the city’s emergency order, thus ending the period of $19.50 an hour hazard pay.

The vote came just days after the new minimum wage provision took effect on Jan. 1. In 2020, Portland voters overwhelmingly passed a referendum to ensure those working during an emergency, such as the pandemic, are paid 1.5 times the minimum wage, which in Portland rose to $13 an hour at the start of the year.

Councilor Victoria Pelletier was the sole dissenting vote.

“How are we in good faith saying we’re a city that prioritizes its workers and its low-income and communities of color, beyond the Black Lives Matter and a ‘thank you’ to essential workers?” Pelletier said. “And how are we adding equity as a top issue we want to tackle in Portland without actually providing financial compensation to those who need it?”

Former Mayor Ethan Strimling wrote on Twitter after the vote, “Despite 60% of Portland voters saying our workers should receive hazard pay during this pandemic, our city council just voted 8-1 to take it away.”

During the same meeting, the council voted uninamously to pass a city-wide indoor mask mandate that excludes businesses that check for vaccination status. Maine is currently seeing a surge in COVID-19 spread, with the arrival of the contagious omicron variant striking during the holiday season.

On Tuesday, the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported that Maine has seen a total of 148,217 cases, up from 146,736 on Friday.

Despite the risks, service industry and other frontline workers have been expected to continue working with a public that has become increasingly cavalier with basic COVID precautions, such as mask wearing. On Sunday, employees of Portland Pie Company in the touristy Old Port walked off the job because of what they described as lax health guidelines, according to the Bangor Daily News.

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