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Local and National News
Advisories, industry-specific fact sheets, and resources for members
Apr. 28, 2020 | Our Union is closely monitoring the global health crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Working with other unions, public health officials and other experts in our Safety and Health Department, the Union is focused on providing Local Unions and staff with the most up-to-date information and resources to help everyone in this difficult time. Click on COVID-19 Outbreak Resources for Members for local and regional resources. Click on COVID-19 News for Industry-related Fact Sheets and other critical information from the IBT.
Important Maryland voter registration and vote-by-mail info
May 21, 2020 | Be sure to register and update your voter registration information by May 27, 2020. It’s important that the Board of Elections has your current address in order to mail you your ballot. Click here to make sure your voter information, party affiliation, and address is updated.New Teamster Podcast: Coronavirus Update 10
May 21, 2020 | Listen here to the latest special edition of the Teamster Nation Podcast and hear from a Local 952 laundry driver about life on the job, plus more health and safety tips, a legislative update, and news from the Graphic Communications Conference.Former Baltimore County executive: The Sun needs local ownership
May 18, 2020 | If a city loses its professional sports teams, it loses its spirit. If a city loses its newspapers, it loses its soul. We fight to keep our ballclubs. It’s time to fight to keep our newspaper. Why should we care what happens to The Baltimore Sun? If we lose our newspaper, we announce to the nation that Baltimore is no longer a big-league city. Here’s a chance to do something noble for our town. Now is the time to rally around the paper. To save it from the corporate demands for profit and restore it to local ownership… The Baltimore SunOlder news items can be viewed at 888 News.
Elsewhere in The News
• Who are essential workers?
• Recovery will take more than money
• Jobless claims pass 40 million
• AFL-CIO formally endorses Biden for president
• How big unions smooth way for Amazon worker protests
• Listen to the latest special edition of Teamster Nation Podcast
• Former Labor Secretary predicts coming wave of labor activism
• Free legal document review, consultations thru July 31, 2020
• Amazon investors want company to address worker safety issues
• Md. stay-at-home order lifted: What’s allowed, what’s not in Baltimore area
• Why do so many workers join the Teamsters? Horsepower
May 29, 2020 | SAFETY & HEALTH | The health and safety of workers in the United States has never come under more scrutiny in the history of this country than it has in recent months during the COVID-19 pandemic, for good reason. A staggering number of employers, small and large, have failed to provide workers with basic protective gear and sanitation and social distancing protocols to keep them safe at work. A new interactive web tool that maps all COVID-19-related health and safety complaints filed in the United States allows users to get a staggering sense of the worksites where workers feel that employers have jeopardized their health and safety… Vice
May 27, 2020 | SAFETY & HEALTH | The local union that represents workers at Ford Motor Co.'s Dearborn Truck Plant is asking the automaker to shut down the assembly line until all plant workers are tested for the coronavirus. The union also is asking for additional break time at the plant that builds the best-selling F-150 pickup. Finally, it wants Ford to do a 24-hour shutdown each time after a worker tests positive for coronavirus for a thorough plant cleaning. The demands are part of a grievance filed Tuesday by UAW Local 600 against the company, said Gary Walkowicz, bargain committeeman at Dearborn Truck Plant. “There’s no safe way to be back to work right now, but a safer way is for everybody to be tested…” Detroit Free Press
• Teamsters strike Hood River Distillers
• Teamster’s son wins battle against coronavirus
• Georgia sanitation workers fighting for basic PPE
• Teamsters target Tyson plant after COVID-19 spreads
• The collective power of pandemic’s essential workers
• Local, state governments need Congress to grant additional relief
• Hoffa talks with LA radio reporter re Covid-19 challenges for union members
• President expressed opposition to extending UI benefits enacted in response to pandemic
• Meatpacking jobs were dangerous before pandemic – now they’re life-or-death
May 21, 2020 | WORKERS’ RIGHTS | Calls for a general strike are growing as millions of people consider going back to work after months of quarantine. Could a mass work stoppage be on the horizon? What about waves of local and regional general strikes as more cities and states move to reopen businesses during a global pandemic? Let’s consider the conditions of our current moment. As COVID-19 continues to claim hundreds of lives every day, workers across the United States face an impossible choice: return to work and risk their health and the health of their loved ones at home, or potentially lose their jobs and their unemployment benefits. While some employers are working with their employees to decide how and when to reopen, others want to jumpstart business and spend Paycheck Protection Program funds so loans provided under the program are forgiven. This requires convincing furloughed and laid-off workers to come back and earn a paycheck, or replacing them with new hires… Truthout
