FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT
GARY WATSON, President
Teamsters Union Local 533
Reno, Nevada
(775) 348-6060 ext. 104
JOHN
E. FOSTER, President & Business Agent
Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1637
Las Vegas, Nevada
(702) 547-0001
SUPERSPREADER
UPDATE
Funeral today for 2nd driver felled by COVID-19
Will
President Biden's new executive order help?
LAS
VEGAS , Nev. (1-22-2021) — "How many more must die
before Nevada enforces mass transit mask mandates?" John Foster
asked while preparing to bury another of his union members.
Dorothy
Ann Frazier will be laid to rest today in Las Vegas, the
second fatality caused by lax COVID-19 safety procedures by Nevada
mass transit systems.
"She was a valued
longtime member of our union and we mourn this needless passing,"
Foster said.
He serves as president
and business agent of Amalgamated
Transit Union (ATU) Local 1637 which represents drivers
and support staff employed by Southern
Nevada Regional Transportation Commission subcontractors.
Ms. Frazier leaves two children, 10 grandchildren, five sisters
and two brothers.
Her memorial service
begins at 12 noon at Heritage
Mortuary, 3610 North Rancho Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89130
(Formal
obituary at NevadaLabor.com/)
Ms. Frazier was 59.
Another ATU member, bus
operator Ja'Mesha
McGuire, died on December 14, one day after her 28th birthday.
(Formal
obituary at NevadaLabor.com/)
"Our transit systems
have created an epidemic of denial during a deadly pandemic,"
Foster asserted.
Northern
Nevada has suffered the same way.
"More than two dozen of our drivers plus some support workers
have contracted COVID-19," stated Teamsters Local 533 President
Gary Watson of Reno. "Two were admitted to intensive care
but have so far survived," he added.
"Social distancing is a thing of the past. Some buses pack
passengers like sardines at peak hours but the foreign-owned management
contractor will not dispatch additional vehicles to relieve overcrowding,"
Watson said. [See for yourself: Facts from the
front of the bus.]
Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County Chair
Neoma Jardon, a Reno councilmember, recently asserted that
the local transit system is safe and forces passengers and drivers
to wear masks.
"Has Chair Jardon ever boarded a bus? Nothing could be further
from the truth," Watson said.
"Transit authorities still refuse to provide accurate information
despite contractual obligations and federal orders," he added.
On Thursday, President Joseph Biden signed an executive order
mandating masks and social distancing on mass transit nationwide.
He also fired notorious anti-worker lawyer Peter
Robb as general counsel of the National Labor Relations
Board, the body mandated by law to protect worker rights which has
often been perverted into a tool of exploitive corporations.
"Bus systems accept a lot of federal money," Foster said,
adding "if they will not now comply, we will ask our congressional
delegation as well as state and local officials to come down hard
in a language they understand — money. This abuse must stop
before more people die."
Because
of lax standards, the bus systems are acting as superspreaders,
land-based ocean liners.
"These organizations are designed for non-accountability,"
Watson said. "There are so many levels of political and management
bureaucracy that it's much easier to pass the buck than do anything.
Everyone else is running at 25 percent capacity under the governor's
orders, why not transit systems?" the longtime union leader
demanded.
The Regional Transportation Commission
of Washoe County consists of five elected
officials from the Washoe County Commission and the Sparks and
Reno city councils. (See below.)
For decades, RTC's north and south have subcontracted transit management
to for-profit contractors. The current Washoe management company
is Keolis Transit America, a subsidiary of multi-national
for-profit Keolis Transit. In southern Nevada, former Washoe manager
MV Transportation runs part of the system with Keolis responsible
for another.
"Our patience with Keolis evaporated when we learned that a
passenger was refused boarding because he was pantsless but maskless
passengers were allowed on the bus," Watson said.
"An epidemic of barefaced passengers rides every day, some
on dangerously overcrowded buses. One rider even spit at a driver.
Bus system management has tried to have it both ways, posting signs
that masks are ineffective and others stating masks
are mandatory, all the while threatening drivers with firing
if they try to enforce the governor's legal order," Watson
added.
"Keolis has even perverted the Americans With Disabilities
Act in order to proceed under the fictitious and feckless assumption
that everyone without a mask is somehow disabled and can't wear
one," the longtime union leader stated.
"This conduct is bad for tourism and economic development,"
Watson declared.
"Reno-Sparks RTC has two levels of bureaucracy on top of the
foreign subcontractor, so whenever there's a problem, elected officials
and system administrators can blame the non-Nevadans and walk away.
Giving control to foreign companies provides local elected officials
with plausible deniability no matter what happens," Watson
asserted.
"Over the years, these flawed policies have only cost untold
millions in tax dollars. Now, they are taking lives. RTC has spent
advertising money promoting the fiction that they are following
Gov. Sisolak's mask mandate when they are doing no such thing. Ms.
Jardon apparently believes TV commercials," he added.
"Bus passengers are often among the most vulnerable in our
society, minorities, the young, the elderly, the disabled, low-wage
workers — and people going to get tested for the virus,"
Watson said.
"This 'no mask required policy' clearly has a disparate impact
on low income families and disproportionately on people of color,"
stated Reno-Sparks NAACP
President Lonnie Feemster last month.
Noting that Keolis enforces mask-wearing in Europe, Nevada Lt.
Governor Kate Marshall recently asked "why can't they keep
passengers and drivers safe in Nevada?"
Last June, Washoe County
health officer Kevin Dick
advised people to walk away from businesses not practicing proper
safety procedures.
"Over the past seven months, we have filed multiple charges
of illegal unfair labor practices with the National
Labor Relations Board. We have gone to U.S.
District Court where expensive union-busting Keolis lawyers
have employed every trick in the book to delay action to protect
passengers and workers," Watson noted.
"We have beseeched all levels of government, including law
enforcement, to help. Without exception, each and every one has
passed the buck. Perhaps now that the election season is over and
more people are getting sick and dying, something will change,"
Watson added.
The union has called for free ongoing testing for drivers and support
staff as well as using RTC security to enforce the governor's mandate.
Washoe system managers told KTVN
TV-2 in September that they will not use their standing security
force to enforce the governor's orders but instead rely on local
police. However, both the Washoe County Sheriff and Reno
Police Department have served notice that they will not aid
the safety of the bus system. Buck passed.
"Regional Transportation
Commission Executive Director Bill Thomas has appeared
on paid advertising asserting that the governor's mandate is being
enforced. But his managers are telling our drivers that anyone without
a mask must be allowed to board or they risk disciplinary action,"
Watson noted.
"Bus systems have
become rolling superspreaders, major contributors to spiraling infection
rates," Foster charged.
"We need strong enforcement and we need it now," Watson
said. "In Reno-Sparks alone, 20,000 passengers a day are being
exposed due to the intransigence of transit managers and indifference
of our political leaders," he added.
"Show me a local bar that serves 20,000 people a day,"
Watson asked.
Drivers
are under constant threat of discipline or firing for refusing to
board maskless passengers.
In Los Angeles, a
Keolis driver still on chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery
was fired for demanding that a passenger don a mask and for
complaining about the company’s failure to outfit buses with
plastic partitions or supply drivers with adequate personal protective
equipment (PPE). Keolis
has refused to reinstate her or modify policies. At last report,
at least thirteen Foothill Transit operators had become infected
with COVID-19.
"Maybe we should re-name the disease KEOLIS-19,"
Watson suggested.
The
Regional Transportation Commission of Washoe County is comprised
of Sparks Mayor Ed
Lawson, Washoe County Commissioners Vaughn
Hartung and Bob
Lucey; Reno City Councilmembers Oscar
Delgado and Neoma Jardon,
board chair. Mr. Delgado and his wife both tested positive for COVID-19
last month. He is currently CEO of the Community
Health Alliance of Washoe County.
Henderson Mayor Debra March chairs the Southern Nevada RTC.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman also sits on the southern
Nevada board along with LV Mayor Pro-Tem Stavros Anthony,
Clark County Commissioners Justin Jones and Tick Segerblom,
North Las Vegas Councilmember Isaac Baron, Boulder City Mayor
Kiernan McManus and Mesquite Councilmember George Gault.
[E-mail SNRTC Public Information
Director Erik Pappa]
Supporting photos, documents, references and archives may be accessed
at NevadaLabor.com/
Chartered in 1934, Teamsters
Local 533 represents about 2,200 workers in various trades
throughout northern Nevada and eastern California.
Chartered in 1992, Amalgamated
Transit Union Local 1637 represents about 800 workers in
southern Nevada.
CWA
9413/AFL-CIO
|
Our
Toothless Mask Mandates
By
Dr. Elizabeth Rosenthal / The New York Times op-ed 10-1-2020
A former big
city ER physician, Dr. Rosenthal is an ex-NYT journalist
who is now editor-in-chief of Kaiser Health News. Her 2017
book "An American Sickness: How health care became big
business and how you can take it back" is still the
single best encapsulation of how to fix the broken US system.
(For a film on some of its best suggestions, get Michael
Moore's 2007 "Sicko.") Dr. Rosenthal's latest
Times piece notes that law enforcement officials
refusing to enforce gubernatorial mandates in Ohio and Wisconsin
are creating "a new level of lawlessness." Ditto Nevada.
Two of our Cow County sheriffs have announced the same thing,
as has our Reno-Sparks-Washoe turkey. Ditto the Reno Police
Dept. "Not our job." And our infection rate increases accordingly.
What a country.
|
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