NPR's David Greene talks to NPR's Scott Horsley and William Spriggs, chief economist for the AFL-CIO, about the pandemic's effect on joblessness — especially on minority employees. SPRIGGS: Well, in this case, it's, for the Hispanic community, the industries in which they dominate. So they're very important to the restaurant industry. That industry lost the most amount of jobs. Before this downturn, we had 12.6 million Americans who worked in restaurants.
Lea Serena is 2nd grade teacher and member of the Boston Teachers Union. During the COVID19 crisis, Lea is balancing teaching from home and caring for her 4th grade son. Lea shares her story with us as part of the Greater Boston Labor Council's #FrontlineHeroes series. Our series profiles the work of union members and everyday heroes who are working throughout this global pandemic. To read other Frontline Hero stories, click here: https://gblc.us/tag/frontline-heroes.
My heart is heavy at the events of the past few days. I watched the video of George Floyd pleading for his life under the knee of a Minneapolis police officer. No person of conscience can hear Floyd’s cries for help and not understand that something is deeply wrong in America.
Nurses and other health care worker advocates and the labor movement represented by the AFL-CIO filed legal charges against the government to require mandated COVID-19 -related standards. Last week the AFL-CIO filed a 70-page petition in federal court to compel the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to issue an emergency temporary standard protecting U.S. workers against being infected by the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) at work. The lawsuit asks the courts to require OSHA to fulfill its lawful duty.
Postal union officials called for more financial support in upcoming COVID-relief packages on Wednesday, warning that the agency could run out of money by the end of September and disrupt essential services. “Without real relief, appropriated relief, not more debt, not more loans, appropriated relief, … the post office could likely run out of money by early fall,” said Mark Dimondstein, president of the American Postal Workers Union.
New data released by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union shows that among the grocery store workers it represents, 10,000 have been infected by or are known to have been exposed to coronavirus and 68 have died from it. At least 3,257 have been infected with the virus, the union estimated on Friday. UFCW represents workers in large grocery store chains like Kroger, Albertson's, and Supervalu. Union President Marc Perrone said in a news conference on Wednesday that the cases have increased by 200% in five weeks.
