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Sunday, March 21 2021
- 9:05pmNate Chesebro created SafetyRead more
Adam Larson
Vice President, Safety+Health Coordinator
Email: [email protected]
Phone: (440) 534-3109The safety and health of our members should be about more than insurance rate reductions and the bottom line and go beyond the end of regular safety meetings and obscure entries into a computer database. Our foremost priority is to ensure the health and safety of our workers. This page contains information about safety issues facing our membership and our current areas of focus.
While USW Local 5000 focuses on specific issues from time to time, it is always the right time to contact us whenever you feel that the health and safety of our members is being compromised. Reach out to the Safety+Health Coordinator or any member of local union leadership to discuss any of your concerns.
COVID-19 Pandemic
While we are seemingly in the home stretch at the end of the pandemic, threats to our member's health are still very real, and the subject of mandating a vaccine is an important conversation. We support proactive measures against introducing the virus aboard our member's vessels, such as limiting visitors and screening for symptoms of COVID-19. While we support these measures and encourage our members to consider vaccination, we do not support mandating the vaccine at any of our workplaces. The decision to receive a vaccine is a matter of personal choice that each member should make on their own, and our union stands ready to fight any employer who takes it upon themselves to make these decisions on behalf of their employees.
Click here to view information specific to COVID-19 and the maritime industry.
Dock Safety
For too many years, our employers have shown weakness in pressuring their customers to provide a safe area to perform mooring operations while docking at various facilities. Our safety has become more of a marketing tool instead of genuine concern, and each year our members are forced to bear the burden of ensuring our own safety. Even though unstable footing caused the tragic death of one of our members in 2019, our members continue to report that these same conditions continue to be tolerated.
Beginning in the summer of 2021, USW Local 5000 is taking a more aggressive approach to pressure management to do the right thing for their employees. We are currently asking our members to report unsafe dock conditions to the union so we can assess the current situation at...
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Friday, March 19 2021
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- 3:48pmRead more
As COVID-19 infection rates soared to ever-higher levels early this year, hundreds of Steelworkers put their lives on the line – and some logged exhausting amounts of overtime – to distribute the vaccines essential to ending the pandemic.
Because of the unique challenges involved in producing and disseminating the vaccines – one required super-cold temperatures during transport, for example – manufacturers relied on the precision-made materials and pharmaceutical packaging expertise that USW members provide.
Members of Local 2-432, who work at Durba-Fibre in Menasha, Wis., made specialty laminated paperboard sleeves and inserts to protect the virus during shipment around the country. Members of Local 2175 in Bloomington, Minn., produced parts for Thermo King refrigeration units that helped trucks keep the vaccine cold on the road.
“I think a lot of people are just happy to help out in any way they can,” said Cole Wilhelm, a steward with Local 2175, noting the parts his members manufacture are typically used in motor coaches’ air-conditioning units and to keep items like produce cold during shipment.
The workers put in extra hours to meet vaccine manufacturers’ demand for their products, while realizing that the longer days boosted their chances of contracting COVID-19 on the job. Wilhelm said he and his colleagues know their work will help America turn the corner on the pandemic and noted, “It’s definitely a big motivator to get even more parts out the door.”
The urgent need for millions of doses of the vaccines generated skyrocketing demand not only for packaging materials and refrigeration units but precisely manufactured glass vials. At Corning, in Vinedale, N.J., and Nipro Glass, in Millville, N.J., USW members ramped up production at great personal sacrifice.
“The members are proud of what we do,” said Chris Ramirez, president of Local 701-01, whose members at the Corning plant make glass tubing that’s turned into vials. “We feel like we’re making a difference and helping other people.”
But even as workers put their safety at risk on the production floor, he said, company managers working remotely and in private offices had the audacity to resist the union’s call for common-sense COVID-19 safety measures.
“I try to tell them, you don’t feel what we feel. We’re out there. We’re in a war zone,” Ramirez said.
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