Officials from the Colorado American Federation of Labor and Congressional of Industrial Organizations are urging state and local elected officials to  implement a statewide reporting tool to hold employers accountable for following public health orders.

The call to action comes after Colorado’s AFL-CIO received over 1,000 complaints on their Colorado Unsafe Worksite reporting tool since its launch in May. 

Complaints were filed by workers in industries including construction, transportation like RTD, and grocery stores such as Safeway, according to a news release. 

“If businesses cannot comply with public health orders and fulfill their moral obligation to keep employees safe on their own volition, our state government and legislature needs to step in and ensure compliance. We need immediate action to protect our workers who are driving the economy during this deadly pandemic,” said Dennis Dougherty, the executive director of the Colorado AFL-CIO.

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Dougherty and the Colorado AFL-CIO say that because there is no enforcement of the public health orders by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment or the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration, local and state leaders must step forward. 

In the more than 1,000 complaints sent to CoUnsafeWorksite.com, workers like Sandra Chavez, a Safeway employee, said they do not feel safe at work.

“I’m considered an essential worker and I have worked throughout the pandemic. I am a cancer survivor and I had no other choice but to go to the night shift in order to feel safer at work,” Chavez said. 

Attempts to reach officials from Safeway were unsuccessful. 

Mary Harmon, a hospice nurse in Denver who has seen the affects of COVID-19 firsthand, said her staff had to reuse personal protective equipment even after treating COVID patients.

“I saw known COVID patients and we did not have the proper PPE to take care of them. We were given a very limited amount of KN-95 masks and we were asked to reuse a lot of our PPE. I brought these concerns up to my leadership team and the regional director and they were never addressed and never looked into,” she said. 

Harmon’s employer was not named in the news release, but she said she was diagnosed with a COVID-19 in November and has moved into a new role at a new company. 

In another complaint, Bob Dinegar, an RTD bus driver, said his agency is not enforcing the rules and has left it up to the public to decide whether to wear a mask or practice social distancing.

“It’s the holiday season, a pandemic is raging and we’re facing a long cold winter of people forced to ride shoulder-to-shoulder in an indoor environment where masks are a maybe and social distancing is rarely possible. RTD needs to follow the common sense recommendations of public health professionals,” Dinegar said in his complaint. 

Laurie Huff, a spokesperson for RTD said that despite Dinegar’s claim, RTD has prioritized the health of its employees and riders. 

“Over the course of the pandemic, RTD has enacted a multitude of measures for employee and customer safety. We are monitoring passenger loads on our bus and rail services and reallocating our resources to busier routes to accommodate social distancing,” Huff said in an email statement to The Denver Gazette.

“We have an ample supply of (PPE), sanitizing chemicals and other key items, and we are cleaning and sanitizing all vehicles every day using an EPA-approved emerging-virus disinfectant.” he statement continued.

“We are nearing completion of an impressive in-house effort to design, manufacture and install polycarbonate barriers on all of our buses, to prevent the spread of COVID-19. RTD requires all bus and rail operators to wear a face covering, and we continue to emphasize to the greatest extent possible that people need to wear a mask while waiting for or riding RTD services,” Huff said. 

As the pandemic continues, the over 130,000 members of AFL-CIO say that a state-run reporting tool is a necessity. 

“Colorado’s working people need a way to report violations and the state needs to enforce its health orders, so frontline transit workers like bus operators are not forced to work under these conditions on their own,” Dinegar said.