Workers’ Safety

Use Your Phone to Fight COVID-19

The The fight against COVID-19 is one that we can win if we work together. Each and every one of us knows to wear a mask, wash our hands and keep a social distance. These simple steps can keep our communities safe. Now, you can add your phone to the fight against COVID-19. New York has launched COVID Alert NY – the official Exposure Notification App created by the New York State Department of Health in partnership with Google, Apple and Bloomberg Philanthropies. This is a free smartphone app available to anyone 18+ that lives and/or works in New York. The app uses Bluetooth technology – not GPS navigation – to quickly alert users if they have been in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. Once alerted, users can quickly protect themselves and others by self-quarantining, contacting their physician and getting tested. Users can also log their symptoms daily and stay updated on the fight against The app does not compromise privacy or collect any personal information. Use of the app is completely anonymous and the app does not track location. COVID Alert NY puts the power in your hands – and on your phone – to fight back harder against the virus. The app is free via the App Store and the Google Play Store. p COVID-19 in New York.

CIR/SEIU and Partners Create "We Keep Us Safe" Guide

The Committee of Interns and Residents/SEIU teamed up with partner organizations Forward Together and Last Mile to create the guide "We Keep Us Safe" to address the systemic inequities that exist when accessing healthcare during the coronavirus pandemic. The guide is designed by and for Black, Indigenous, Latinx, people of color and LGBTQ communities that provides tips, advice, and resources for anyone who thinks they may have COVID-19 or cares for a loved one that may become sick. Topics include information on symptoms, testing and prevention, kids and COVID-19, reproductive justice, advocacy for COVID-19 safety for essential workers, advocacy and organizing in the workplace, how to vote and protest safely, and much more. To get the Guide, go to forwardtogether.org. Individuals and organizations can also request printed copies from the digital version to distribute.p

Workers’ Safety

Amazon Plows Ahead with Prime Day Despite Dangers to Workers

Amazon moved forward with its Prime Day shopping event this week, despite a report by Reveal, from The Center for Investigative Reporting, showing that the week around last year’s Prime Day was the most dangerous for Amazon fulfillment center workers.

Editorial credit: Silver Wings SS / Shutterstock.com

"During normal times it’s a grueling period for workers. During a global pandemic it may well push workers beyond their limit,” said Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU). p

NY WORKERS’ COMPENSATION

Are you working? Have you been injured on the job? Was it a serious injury as defined under NY Workers’ Compensation Law? If yes, then call Figeroux & Associates for a FREE Consultation at 718-222-3155.

Why Should I Hire A Lawyer?

In addition to being eligible for workers' compensation, you may also have a claim against a party other than your employer. That is why it is so important to seek assistance from our experienced team.

Workers who know their rights and speak to a lawyer put themselves in a better position to obtain a recovery. Find Out What Our Firm Can Do For You

You Can Help Stop the Layoffs

Guggenheim Union Greets Museum Members at Reopening With Protest

DC 37 launched a campaign to highlight the invaluable services our members provide and demand the state Legislature take action to stop the proposed layoffs of 22,000 city workers. Please visit www.dc37everydayheroes.com to watch the video and click the link to email your elected officials and

Photo courtesy DC37

urge them to support the various job-saving proposals under consideration. We are at a critical juncture. It is vital that the state Legislature take action to save the jobs of members, who as essential workers have already sacrificed so much during this COVID-19 pandemic. Please share this message with coworkers, family, friends-- anyone who is willing to stand with us! We are essential to New York City. Layoffs are simply not an option. Visit: www.dc37everydayheroes.com to email your legislators.p

2020 Local 3 Legends St. Baldrick's Fundraiser

Photo courtesy NYC Central Labor Council

The 2020 Local 3 Legends proud of, and not even this tumultuous year could stop shave-off fundraiser was it. 22 participants raised over $78,000 for the St. Baldrick’s spread out far and wide, Foundation, which is the top private funder of childhood from job sites to union mem- cancer research grants in the U.S. and the world. Thank bers’ homes and backyards. you to all the union members, employers, families and It’s an annual tradition that friends who donated to this great cause. Please consider Local 3 IBEW members are making a donationp

Photo courtesy NYC Central Labor Council

Atruck loaded with digital tive of Local 30, told Hyperalscreens parked in front of the lergic. “ It’s a failure of the Guggenheim Museum in Guggenheim’s administration New York and blasted Fifth Avenue that they haven’t been able to with Led Zepplin’s 1970s hit “Kash- reach an agreement with their mir.” The truck belonged to IUOE workers.” Local 30, the union representing art An attorney representing the handlers and facilities staff at the Guggenheim sent a letter to Guggenheim, who staged a protest Local 30 asking the union to outside the museum during its mem- hold any future protests in a bers-only re-opening. designated area on the corner “We Deserve a Better Guggen- of Fifth Avenue and 88th heim,” read one of the messages on Street, down the street from the mobile screen. Others read “Fair the museum’s entrance. Local Contract Now” and “#DoBetter- 30 dismissed the GuggenGuggenehim,” in addition to news heim’s request and parked its clips and facts about the union’s year- protest truck defiantly in front long negotiations with the museum, of the museum’s entrance. which have yet to culminate in a col- “Nobody is going to tell us lective bargaining contract. how we can exercise our First “The museum fought the workers’ Amendment rights,” said union from the very beginning of this Puerta. p campaign and continues to fight them,” Andres Puerta, a representa- —NYC Central Labor Council,

A Pandemic Nurse's Diary

March 20, 2020: When I walk through the automatic doors into the ICU at 7 AM, I step into a war zone. There are overflowing trash buckets and debris scattered all over the unit. Four red crash carts sit outside the rooms, their drawers open and largely empty, witnesses to the chaotic night. One of the patients who coded survived, the three others died. One body in a white plastic shroud is still in a room on the bed waiting for a stretcher. So opens the personal diary of Nurse T. She is one of the thousands of health care workers in New York City who covered their twelve-hour shifts day after day as the Covid-19 virus raged through the city. Her account is personal, poignant and poetic as she documents the suffering of the poor, largely immigrant patients who flooded the facility seeking treatment.It is also the story of a city, state and federal government that long denied hospitals like hers the funding AFL-CIO and support they need to meet current standards. Long starved for funds, the facility’s ancient infrastructure and inadequate supplies placed a heavy burden on the staff, who nonetheless walked up the marble stairs all through the crisis and gave their best, whatever the personal cost, whatever the outcome.p