MESSAGE FROM SECRETARY-TREASURER Steven P. Vairma

Steve Vairma's Column:

Teamsters play key role in pandemic fight

It seems like there are more trucks than cars on the highways nowadays.  Proportionately, though, that's probably because there are so many fewer automobiles on the road as the nation attempts to overcome the tragic coronavirus disease.

However, one factor that is obvious by the unfamiliar highway scene is the vital role played by trucks during the Covid 19 pandemic.

Indeed, we all should give sincere thanks to those workers who are holding the lives of others in their capable hands during the coronavirus.  They are many - the doctors, nurses, emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and other medical professionals who risk their own lives for the sake of others every day during Covid-19.

There's a lot of people to thank.

So, let's not forget the huge role played by those workers responsible for loading and delivering the food, medicine, ventilators, heavy medical equipment and even the toilet paper needed by the emergency medical technicians, police, fire fighters, grocery store clerks and the general public.

There's no question that without trucks and those who drive and load them, Covid-19 would win.

Teamsters are loading, driving, sometimes unloading thousands of those trucks daily, often taking risks by entering hospitals and other facilities where victims of coronavirus are being treated.  Other Teamsters, hopefully temporarily unemployed, are assisting in the Covid-19 effort by staying home.

Teamsters whose work is considered vital to the commonweal and those whose work is to stay at home are both doing their jobs during this perilous time.