Members and Retirees of Local 5328

Hi all. 

 Some changes to the Covid-19 procedure and info. 

 Screening will now be done at the guard shack. We have had many people miss the screening at the front entrance. To ensure we continue to reduce the risk. There may be a back log as the weather may play a part and you may have to enter the guard shack to complete the screening process. 

 In addition to that, oil temper, straight and cut and furnace will be allowed a half hour early relief starting Monday April 6. Your relief must be on the job to leave and shower and you must have 12 hours on your swipe, not before 6:30 am or pm. 

 As some may disagree with these measures, they are for our protection to reduce the risk of contracting the virus. Every little bit helps a lot. 

 Some may have seen or met our new Plant manager today, Isabel Martinez, she has officially taken over as of yesterday.  Isabel is very hands on and extremely health and Safety conscious, as that is her background.  She is very approachable and will be on the floor a lot!!! Please welcome her as she believes that we, the workers,  are her number one priority. 

 Now some bad news. With some late developments to crewing, the return of four people from self isolation, there will be additional layoffs at the end of the week. The schedule should be up tomorrow. 

When meeting the company today, I tabled the Federal governments new program to pay up to 75% of wages to save layoffs. They are looking into it and will have an answer in a day or two. 

 The request for people to use preretirement vacation was granted today but with parameters. It will be a case by case evaluation, if qualified it will be given in two week increments and decided every two weeks based on the needs of the company to a maximum of 7 weeks. 

 Let’s all do our part and beat this!! 

 In solidarity, 

Anthony Ciaramella 
President
USW Local 5328

https://www.usw.org/members/coronavirus-resources

I received an email from plant manager Greg Halford this morning in regard to warehouse inventory. The email says that "After one week of shutdown, the Des Moines warehouse inventory has dropped 5% on units, or approximately 13,000 tires. That's the good news, customers continue to buy our tires." Greg also says that this is a pretty substantial drop in 7 days. Hopefully the trend continues, but it could eventually impact critical sizes. I just wasted to share with you all that we are selling tires and for the folks in the warehouse it has been business as usual. Please remember our Brothers and Sisters working in the warehouse to get tires to our customers, keeping our business afloat during this trying time.

In Solidarity,

Steve Vonk

If you or your department is suffering from a shortage of PPE equipment, please let us know. We can not only pass that on to Employee-Labor Relations, but our International Union wants to know as well so as to guide our lobbying and legislative efforts. Likewise, let us know if you're having to re-use PPEs. Send reports to [email protected]

Here is the letter from USW District 10 Director Bobby Mac to Gov. Tom Wolf.

pennsylvania_letter.pdf

Letter to Gov. Wolf