News

When you've gotta go, GO UNION!

Andy O’Brien
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IN THIS EDITION:

  • Nurses Win Better Protections at Northern Lights Facilities
  • Baileyville USW Members Hard at Work Making Toilet Paper
  • Driving on the Frontlines with ATU Local 714 Member Tiffany Lister
  • Op-Ed: "Maine's Frontline Workers Need Immediate Federal Action"

Nurses Win Better Protections at Northern Light Facilities

Maine State Nurses Association/NNU members at Eastern Maine Medical Center (EMMC) and Northern Light Homecare and Hospice (NLHCH) successfully pressured management to provide N95 respirators to nurses for all care of COVID-19 positive and suspected positive patients after campaigning for better protections for several weeks. Both employers had previously refused that demand and only allowed N95s for certain procedures.

But due internal and public pressure, both EMMC and NLHCH have changed course and agreed with union members that N95s should be used for all care of all COVID positive patients and patients under investigation. EMMC also finally agreed to provide scrubs to nurses in its ICU and on floors where COVID patients are treated, to prevent these workers from carrying contagions home on their own clothes. There are plenty more issues to fix (like the possible “sterilization” and re-use of N95s), but the pattern is clear: When we fight, we win! We salute Maine State Nurses Association/NNU for making public demands and organizing and taking direct action in the workplace.

Baileyville USW Members Hard at Work Making Toilet Paper

Members of USW Local 9546 have been very busy these days trying to meet the increased demand for toilet paper, facial tissues and paper towels and restock the shelves at local grocery stores like IGA, Shaw’s and Hannaford.

"We are producing 300 tons per day of tissue to be converted to toilet paper, facial tissues and towel to help everyone keep COVID-19 free, said USW  9546 President Dave Ward. "Our 70 members are working non-stop, here in Bailyeville, to help restock the shelves, at your local market."

So when you need toilet paper, buy local and go union! And if your local grocery store doesn't have Fiora products, ask the manager to stock it!

Driving on the Frontlines with ATU Local 714 Member Tiffany Lister

[caption caption="ATU 714 member Tiffany Lister (right) helps a rider carry her groceries (Photo Bangor Daily News)" align="center"][/caption]


=While thousands of Mainers have either been laid off or are working from home, Amalgamated Transit Union Local 714 member Tiffany Lister continues to work on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic, driving Bangor residents to appointments, the grocery store and to work, according to an excellent story in the Bangor Daily News last week. As Tiffany told the paper, ATU 714 members have successfully bargained for hazard pay for the 2½ months that started March 15 as well as protective N95 respirator masks.

“They’ve been very good and listened to our concerns,” Tiffany told the BDN. 

The Community Connector has also implemented a number of new safety measures, such as putting a ten-person cap on the number of passengers allowed on each bus, cleaning the buses more frequently, requiring able-bodied passengers to enter the buses from the rear entrances and no longer accepting fares to ensure that passengers don’t encroach on the drivers’ space. Drivers are also carrying individually-wrapped face masks to hand out to riders who are coughing. Check out the full story here.

Op-Ed: "Maine's Frontline Workers Need Immediate Federal Action"

Maine AFL-CIO President Cynthia Phinney and Mike Belliveau of the Environmental Health Strategy Center recently penned a guest column in the Bangor Daily News calling on the Trump Administration to ensure frontline workers have the protections they need to prevent the spread of COVID-19. 

Belliveau and President Phinney called on the federal government to make more aggressive use of the Defense Production Act, to speed immediate production of personal protective equipment and ensure it is routed to states for distribution across acute care, home care and long-term care settings, as well as other industries where workers confront the risk of exposure on a daily basis in their workplace.

"Providing all frontline workers with protective equipment and strengthening and investing in our public health system will bolster our collective defense against this merciless virus — because protecting workers’ health and safety means public health protections for all of us," they wrote. 

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