Most companies haven't given essential workers pandemic "hazard pay." One city is changing that.

Although large employers have sung the praises of the retail, grocery, health care, delivery and other workers deemed "essential" during the pandemic, they've generally resisted raising the pay of this mostly low-wage workforce.

Oxnard, California, is trying to buck that trend. The city of 200,000 is giving a $1,000 bonus to every essential worker who was employed at least three months during the heath crisis. About 1,700 workers will receive the "gratitude pay," according to the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 770, which represents about 450 affected workers. "It was very scary, not knowing who was going to be sick, if someone was going to be sick," said Lucy Gilbertson, a deli worker at supermarket Vons and Local 770 member. "Now I feel like we didn't just work through the pandemic and risk our lives for nothing."