San José, CA – Many immigrants won’t be able to get help from the bipartisan COVID-19 pandemic aid bills passed by Congress and signed by President Trump. More than 4 million undocumented immigrants who are paying taxes with an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number, or ITIN, will not qualify for the $1200 per person benefit because they have no Social Security number. Another 5 million American citizen children with undocumented parents also will not get the $500 per child benefit.
Chicago, IL – Teamsters Local 710 published an online memorial to Brother William “Dollar Bill” Young, who passed away on Sunday, March 29. Brother Young worked at the UPS CACH facility and was remembered as “hard working,” and “dedicated to his craft and always a friendly face.”
Chicago, IL – The COVID-19 health crisis has (rightly) led to millions of people staying home in order to reduce the spread of the virus. For hundreds of thousands of Teamsters though – drivers and warehouse workers at UPS and YRC, grocery store clerks and food service workers – all deemed “essential services” by the Trump administration – we have to continue to work regardless of the risks.
Chicago, IL – Two dozen prominent organizations and individuals have urged Gov. J. B. Pritzker in a letter to use “the powers of [his] office to provide long overdue justice to Gerald Reed.” Reed’s deteriorating health puts him at extreme risk due to the COVID-19 pandemic. He has heart failure, and late last year while awaiting a new trial at Cook County jail he had a heart attack.
New York, NY – Due to the rising unemployment rate, New Yorkers are struggling financially. Some measures have been taken to help homeowners, as well as those going through eviction proceedings. An indefinite moratorium has been placed on evictions, and Governor Andrew Cuomo enacted a 90-day suspension on mortgages. The governor has even gone on to say that through these actions, he has “taken care of the rent issue.”
Wall Street ignores human suffering to launch new bull market
San José, CA – On Thursday, March 26, the Labor Department reported the new claims for Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits rocketed to 3.3 million for the week ending March 21. This was almost five times the previous record of almost 700,000 new claims in October of 1982, when the recession drove the unemployment rate to 10.8%. The number of new claims for UI was 15 times higher than the report just two weeks earlier.
Los Angeles, CA – Long time Chicano leader Carlos Montes blasted the Trump administration’s mishandling of the pandemic, March 25, stating, “President Trump’s irrational and disjointed response to this COVID-19 pandemic is causing major harm to working people.”
The National Prison Movement (Movimiento Nacional Carcelario) and other prisoner rights groups called a demonstration in Colombian prisons on March 21, to protest the lack of protection against the COVID-19 virus and the general lack of decent healthcare in the Colombian prisons. Twelve Colombian prisons answered the call for a ‘cacerolazo,’ a protest where one bangs on pots and pans to make enough noise so that the protest is heard.
Minneapolis, MN – The MN Anti-War Committee (AWC) wanted to be a part of Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network’s global week of action for Palestinian Land Day but they couldn’t do it as a protest the way they had originally planned. Instead on March 24 the MN AWC reorganized their protest as a call-in day, and then did a five-person social distancing bannering protest.
Minneapolis, MN – The world is the midst of a once-in-a-century disease pandemic. COVID-19 is a natural phenomenon that is quickly becoming a human disaster.
Tampa, FL – UPS preloaders held a demonstration March 24 demanding disposable gloves, hand sanitizer and other personal protective equipment (PPE) amid the global COVID-19 pandemic. The demonstration was part of an ongoing local and national fight by UPS employees to get the PPE they need to safely perform their job and prevent the spread of the virus to customers and the public.
Chicago, IL – This past week, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) won expanded protections for all its members at United Parcel Service (UPS). The mid-contract negotiations were in direct response to the Trump administration's designation of UPS as an essential service during the COVID-19 crisis, meaning that workers will continue to work throughout the duration of this health emergency.
Lansing, MI – In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic sweeping the world, UPS Teamsters are concerned about the lack of safety precautions taken by the company. While UPS workers were deemed essential workers, there has been little to no effort on the part of UPS to make the workplace safe from the virus. There has been no scale-back of operations to only essential or critical packages, there have been no additional jobs created for cleaning and sanitizing work spaces, and any efforts to supply the work force with cleaning and hygiene supplies has been at the discretion of local managers and supervisors on a case-by-case basis.
San José, CA – The U.S. Senate has failed twice to pass a Republican-backed economic stimulus bill worth over a trillion dollars ($1,000,000,000,000). Opposition to the bill comes from its top-down (or in the 1930’s Great Depression term, ‘trickle down’) approach. The bill would provide hundreds of billions of loans to corporations that would not have to be paid back, just as in the loans made to U.S. auto makers after the financial crisis in 2008. It would also give direct cash handouts, with almost half of all households getting half of what middle and higher income households would get.
New Orleans, LA – Transgender community activists in Louisiana put together a crisis fund. It gives cash to trans and gender non-conforming people hit hardest by COVID-19.
