1. No
Metro employees are on strike. Not one. The small group of
strikers are employed by a staffing company that also provides
employees to other sanitation companies in New Orleans and across
the country.
2. No
striker has been fired by Metro or the staffing company. The
staffing company has released its own statement to verify this
fact. While Metro respects their right to strike, any who have
chosen to do so have been invited to return to work when they
wish.
3. All
Metro employees and contractors are paid in compliance with the
city’s Living Wage ordinance, which is a minimum of $11.19 per
hour. No one is paid under that amount and many are paid more.
Metro’s pay scale is in line with other sanitation companies in
our State.
4.
Jimmie and Glenn Woods fully understand the important and often
unpleasant work undertaken daily by the hoppers. They both grew
up in the sanitation business and worked as hoppers early in
their careers. They are very sensitive to the challenges and
demands faced by hoppers everyday and work hard to treat them
with the respect and dignity they deserve.
5. All
truck hoppers are fully provided with PPE by both Metro and their
staffing company. Before the strike even started Metro bought
15,000 masks, 2000 pairs of industrial safety gloves, large
amounts of sanitizer and more, and all drivers and hoppers are
given a generous amount for their shifts.
6. No
one has been permanently replaced with “prison labor”. However,
during the first four days of the strike, Metro was forced to
subcontract with a work release program to meet the temporary
staffing shortfall in order for Metro to honor its contract with
the city. The Woods family has always supported programs that
help formerly incarcerated men and women return to society. They
don’t apologize for that fact and no one should have to. Metro
banned the box before it became law and thus helped many
vulnerable and least likely to be employed Black men to enter the
workforce.
7. No
sanitation company in the city is providing hazard pay, yet these
protestors have singled out Metro, an African-American owned
business while not even questioning the practices of others. This
fact is especially egregious and is shamelessly racially
motivated. Metro fully supports hazard pay for all sanitation
workers, nurses, bus drivers, hospitality workers and other
frontline essential personnel and has actively encouraged both
the federal and state governments to provide it since small,
locally owned businesses cannot do so on
their own.
As local
ministers, pastors and religious leaders we see first-hand, every
day the harmful effects of actions that divide and threaten our
community. We see what joblessness and a lack of steady income
does to destroy families and bring poverty and despair to our
people.
We
understand the value of local jobs for local people and the need
to support and stand up for African-American owned businesses that
have long been there for us. And we also see very plainly that
these attacks represent a reproduction of neocolonialist
practices. Unfortunately, as we have all become familiar as of
late with institutional and structural racism and the many ways
that various institutions including media promote these
practices; those who are instigating the attacks against Metro
are nowhere to be seen in our neighborhoods,
in our streets or in our churches unless doing so serves their
selfish purposes first and foremost.
We urge
all local residents to think for themselves, to get the facts and
not just read the headlines, and to set the record straight when
these unfounded and divisive allegations are thrown around so
cheaply against people we know and value as friends, employers
and public-minded citizens.
Dr.
Willie Gable, Jr., President
The
Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance
--------
About
the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance:
The
Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance is metro New Orleans
oldest and largest inter-faith civil rights and social justice
advocacy organization, with pastors serving more than 55,000
congregation members.
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