Workers Are Organizing Amid COVID-19 Crisis

IN THIS EDITION 

• Workers Are Organizing & We Want to Hear Your Stories
• Union Corrections & Mental Health Employees Secure Hazard Pay 
• Nurses  Lead Calls for More Protections for Frontline Workers
• MSEA-SEIU 1989: Mills Not Doing Enough to Protect State Employees
• KVCAP Drivers Ratify New Contract, Receive Hazard Pay

Workers Are Organizing & We Want to Hear Your Stories

[caption caption="Fast food workers stage walk out in California on Thursday (Fight for 15)" align="center"][/caption]

Since the COVID-19 crisis began, both union and non-union frontline workers have organized and taken direct action to demand protective equipment, hazard pay, and better paid leave policies to protect their families and the public from the spread of the coronavirus. Last week, St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center in Lewiston reversed a policy that required quarantined employees to use their own sick and vacation time if they are exposed to the coronavirus after nurses at the hospital publicly criticized the policy. 

Spectrum technicians in Maine have gone to the media to raise concerns that the company is not properly protecting people from the spread of the virus when cable company workers enter homes. In other states we have seen Amazon workers, fast food employees and gig workers stage walk outs to demand better protections and compensation for risking their lives. Are you or someone you know fighting for demands in your workplace? Please let us know and we will assist you in whatever way we can!

Corrections & Mental Health Employees Secure Hazard Pay

[caption caption="Employees of Riverview & Dorothea Dix at the State House in 2016 (Maine Beacon)" align="center"][/caption]

Workers at the state’s mental health and corrections facilities bargained to win hazard pay to compensate them for their frontline work during the COVID-19 crisis. The Mills administration agreed to the terms last week after members of AFSCME Council 93 and MSEA-SEIU 1989, who work in corrections, Riverview Psychiatric Center and Dorothea Dix Psychiatric Center, began asking the administration for hazard pay last month. Under the agreements, most of these employees will receive pay increases of between $3 and $5 per hour, depending on a workers’ responsibility.

We congratulate our union brothers and sisters for successfully securing increased hazard pay. You are an inspiration to other emergency workers who also deserve hazard pay for their courage in this crisis. Maine Service Employees Association, SEIU 1989 is demanding that all state employees reporting to worksites receive hazard pay during this crisis. If your union or co-workers are demanding  — or have won —  hazard pay, please let us know.

Nurses Lead Calls for More Protections Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Members of the Maine State Nurses Association are continuing to pressure decision makers to ensure frontline workers are protected from contracting the coronavirus. Speaking to the Maine Beacon, Maine State Nurses Association member Erin Oberson, a labor and delivery nurse, said that she and her colleagues do not feel adequately protected.

“We are given a mask when we come to work,” she said, “just a simple paper face mask that you’re supposed to wear for 12 hours of your shift and reuse the next day as possible, which I’ve not found it to be. In my nearly 20 years of nursing, I’ve never been asked to wear a mask, the same mask, in between different patient contacts. That’s dangerous. It has not been well received by the staff. We want the highest level of protection.”

As of Friday there were currently 97 health care workers in Maine with COVID-19, or roughly 18 percent of known cases in the state, according to the Maine Centers for Disease Control. Oberson said that she and other MSNA members are urging people to sign our petition calling on our elected officials to ensure frontline workers have the necessary protective equipment.

MSEA: Governor Not Doing Enough to Protect State Employees

[caption caption="DHHS office in Rockland." align="right"][/caption]

The Maine Service Employees Union says the Mills administration is not doing enough to protect state employees from the spread of the coronavirus following the announcement of a third positive COVID-19 test of a Department of Health and Human Services employee this week. An attorney for the union told the Portland Press Herald that DHHS was only notifying co-workers of a potential exposure when one of their colleagues tested positive for the illness and not when they first go out on sick leave. Union leaders say the problem is that COVID-19 has a long incubation period and a person can be infected for up to 14 days before showing any symptoms.

MSEA-SEIU 1989 is demanding that the state treat every recommended quarantine of state employees as a potential positive COVID-19 exposure and to give workers as much notice as possible so they can make informed decisions for themselves and their families. Additionally, the union continues to push for management at the Maine Department of Transportation to do more to protect the health and safety of Maine DOT workers.

KVCAP Drivers Ratify First Contract, Receive Hazard Pay 

[caption caption="KVCAP drivers, members of IAM Local S89" align="center"][/caption]

After nearly a year of tense negotiations, drivers with the Kennebec Valley Community Action Program (KVCAP) voted overwhelmingly to ratify their first union contract late last month. The Machinists Union Local S89 members were able to secure pay increases, improved leave of absence and winter weather day policies, signing bonuses, a grievance procedure, the establishment of a new safety committee and other important victories. In response to the COVID-19 crisis, drivers are also now receiving a $2 an hour increase for hazard pay.

“I’m really happy about this contract,” said KVCAP driver Peter Nielsen. “It codified a lot of things that we didn’t have on paper before. The drivers now have a lot more to work with than we had before we started this whole process a year ago.”

Shortly before the company agreed to better terms, union members and labor allies from across the state joined the KVCAP drivers on an informational picket in Augusta in early March.