Craig Menear
Chairman, CEO and President
The Home Depot, Inc.
Dear Craig:
Thank you for signing the Business Roundtable letter supporting the vaccine mandate. Although it hasn’t been implemented yet, I’d like to alert you to a potential employee compliance problem in your Marietta Georgia store that I read on Twitter.
I contacted the author of the tweet who said the clerk got angry when discussing the vaccination mandate and dropped her mask to say, “I’m not letting them spear me with vaccine.”
The author was concerned that other employees might feel the same way and local store managers won’t enforce the vaccination mandate when it is implemented.
I hope they will, but I’ve taken the liberty of copying OSHA’s Region 4 Office on this letter so when the rule goes into effect, they can confirm that all employees have attested to being vaccinated or will test weekly to meet the requirements of the new rule.
Your customers know what can happen when you don’t follow safety rules on the jobsite. Injury and death. You and your shareholders should know the financial cost of willfully ignoring COVID-19 safety rules.
For example, earlier this year Marietta manufacturer FBS Manufacturing was cited for exposing workers willfully to preventable fall hazards that led to employee’s death.
“FBS Manufacturing Corp.’s failure to implement legally required safety procedures led to tragedy for a worker and his family,” said OSHA Area Office Director Jeffery Stawowy in Atlanta-West. “The fact that this incident was preventable only deepens their loss. This case should remind all employers that prioritizing production or profits over safety is never an acceptable choice.”
The author has built 3 homes in East Cobb County with Home Depot as her primary source of materials. She was very frightened after the incident and will not return until she reads about the 100% vaccination compliance at your Marietta Georgia store.
You have 90 stores in Georgia. An average of 118 Georgians are dying of COVID-19 everyday. The sooner you act, the more lives will be saved.
As you say in your values statement, do the right thing, take care of people and you’ll increase your shareholder value.
Keeping your employees alive is good for business.
LLAP,
Michal Spocko
P.S. The author sent me a copy of the receipt with the date and exact time of the interaction which I have linked to here.
cc:
Eric R. Lucero, Public Affairs, Department of Labor, OSHA, Region 4, Atlanta-West
The Home Depot
Teresa Roseborough, EVP, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Chair Compliance Council
Travis Lawrence, Vice President Human Resources
Kathleen Eaton, Vice President Safety
Chris Peters, Senior Manager Human Resources – COVID Strategic Response
Sue Dorsey, OSHA Regulatory Compliance Specialist