NYC★ WORKS
CELEBRATING LABOR IN THE BIG APPLE
UNIONS PROVE TO BE A NECESSITY
FOR ESSENTIAL WORKERS
THROUGHOUT-COVID-19 CRISIS
BY MARK HALLUM
While essential workers
are still going
to work every day
to fight off the deadly COVID
19 pandemic across
New York City, unions
have continuously backed
their members and spoken
out where need is greatest.
Still, the losses mount.
The MTA has lost 120
employees to COVID-19
since it began in March,
New York City has lost 270
public servants as of May
19 and organizations such
as the Transport Workers
Union at the regional level
and the Transportation
Trades Department have
been pulling their weight
to get supplies needed for
their members.
Even as the HEROES
Act has stalled in the U.S.
Senate, 32BJ SEIU has
been calling for layoff protection
to be included in
the bill that would provide
$1 trillion for cities and
states to continue providing
essential services.
“The majority of 32BJ
members immigrants and
people of color who are disproportionately
affected
by COVID-19. The HEROES
Act helps to address
some of the glaring inequities
that have been exacerbated
by this crisis by
demanding data on racial
disparities and COVID and
by providing assistance
for struggling families,”
said Kyle Bragg, President
of 32BJ SEIU, on May 15.
“Now we call on the Senate
to do all it can to protect
essential workers so they
have full access to emergency
relief like layoff protection,
essential pay and
personal protective equipment
to avoid infection.”
On March 25, Brooklyn
Borough President Eric
Adams and TWU Local
100 call on the MTA provide
masks and other sanitary
supplies as opposed
to other measures implemented
such as rear-door
boarding on buses and sixfeet
of distance between
drivers and riders.
The rear-door boarding
is a good safety measure
in buses, but our members
want masks as an added
layer of protection and
some peace of mind,” TWU
Local 100 President Tony
Utano said at the time.
“Every safety precaution
must be take to protect
the workforce or the MTA
won’t have enough workers
to run the service.”
By March 30, the MTA
had broken from the Centers
for Disease Control’s
recommendation that
healthy individuals do not
need masks to prevent exposure
from the coronavirus
and began issuing
N95s in the agency’s stockpile.
TWU International
contributed masks to the
distribution
By early April, however,
33 MTA employees were
dead, a number that would
explode to 120 by May.
In the interim, TWU
and other unions would
get a deal from the MTA
that doubled the payout
for families of workers
who died from coronavirus.
The loss of life benefits
would go from $250,000
to $500,000.
But TWU is still urging
the MTA to provide hazard
pay to its workers as
many continue to report
for duty and take part in
the aggressive cleaning effort
between 1 a.m. and 5
a.m. while the subway is
on shutdown.
But unions representing
transit workers are
not the only ones going to
bat for their members.
In Long Island City, District
Council 9, a chapter
of the International Union
of Painters and Allied
Trades, opened up their office
for antibody testing for
over 11,000 members and
gave out cloth face masks
in preparation for the first
phase of the reopening
which will include construction
trades.
“Since the start of this
health crisis, our members
have been on the front
lines, preparing temporary
hospital spaces and reporting
to job sites deemed essential.
Now that our members
will be returning to
work across all job sites, we
will do everything in our
power to ensure they have
the necessary resources to
help them feel comfortable
in the transition towards a
new normal,” DC9’s business
manager Joseph Azzopardi
said.
Although downstate is
far from reopening, in comparison
to other regions in
New York which have already
begun the process,
anticipation of this could be
a response COVID-19 hospitalizations
and deaths on a
continued downward trend.
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