Tamara Taylor served on Local 5795’s executive board and on various union committees over the years, helping her co-workers through many of the challenges they faced every day at Rio Tinto’s iron ore mine in Labrador City, Canada.
Yet she recalled wanting to do more and volunteered about three years ago for the USW’s Emergency Response Team (ERT).
The decision enables her to support fellow union members during some of the worst days of their lives. It’s also tested her own mettle like never before.
The ERT answers a hotline—866-526-3480—around the clock. When a call for help comes in, the ERT, based at the USW’s International Headquarters in Pittsburgh, dispatches specially trained union members to assist workers and families affected by severe workplace injuries or fatalities as well as a growing range of other incidents.
These ERT coordinators step in to handle various immediate and longer-term needs, freeing the victims to heal, care for one another, or grieve.
For example, ERT coordinators may work with the employer to provide family members with meals, lodging near a hospital or counseling. We represent family members in conversations with the company. And in the days and weeks afterward, the ERT’s role may expand to helping families with workers compensation, death benefits or related issues.
This is some of the toughest work in the union. And we remain committed to doing it better and better.
This is some of the toughest work in the union. And we remain committed to doing it better and better.
Meeting Evolving Needs
The ERT, unique in the labor movement, marks its 20th anniversary this year. It’s become one of the USW’s signature programs, available to every member in every one of our workplaces.
The number of calls varies from year to year. We responded to 173 incidents in 2022, 118 in 2023 and 125 last year.
While the majority of calls involve workplaces, as intended by the ERT’s founders, we increasingly find that members need the same kinds of support in other life-altering situations.
We continue to respond when members call us in the wake of suicides, motor vehicle accidents, mass shootings or other community crises, always working with local union officials who help guide our efforts on the ground.
Deploying Resources Effectively
The ERT requires an appropriate number of coordinators to deliver innovative, exceptional service while also providing adequate step-down time for union members who take on this emotionally draining service.
We now have 62 across the United States and Canada, a handful more than at the time of the last convention and a number that meets current needs. Even so, we continue recruiting for the team to keep the coordinator figure steady amid retirements and other attrition.
We rely on local unions and districts to negotiate contract language that enable coordinators to step away from their jobs temporarily for ERT duty.
A robust number of coordinators is just one way to ensure readiness. We also work with district directors to enable coordinators to serve across district lines, enabling coordinators to back each other up and ramp up response times in certain geographic areas.
This flexibility enables us to dispatch multiple coordinators when circumstances warrant, such as after the September 2022 explosion at a refinery in Come by Chance, Newfoundland, that killed one USW member and injured seven other workers.
After traveling about 1,200 miles to the refinery, Taylor devoted her attention to the survivors, their families and the loved ones of the worker who died weeks after the incident.
Her fellow ERT coordinator, Trisha Benedict, a Local 5319 steward and airport screener in Halifax, Nova Scotia, made a 645-mile journey to the refinery to support the facility’s other workers. They also were traumatized by the incident and needed various kinds of care.
Taylor and Benedict later returned for a follow-up visit— at union members’ request—to provide further assistance.
Sometimes, a coordinator’s second visit, or third, has a bigger impact than the first. We take a case-by-case approach to ensure our members get the care they need, as long as they need it.
Training for Excellence
At least once every two years, the ERT brings coordinators together for a week of training aimed both at improving the quality of our assistance and ensuring team members take proper care of themselves.
The training last year included a presentation by Barb Ertl, a certified trauma treatment specialist uniquely qualified to address the range of challenges facing our coordinators.
Ertl, a Marine Corps veteran who once oversaw a crisis team for 12 school districts, made recommendations for handling ERT calls. She also explained the physical, mental and social aspects of health and outlined strategies for helping coordinators—and others—stay safe.
Dr. Jeff Lating, a professor of psychology at Loyola University Maryland, also continued his years-long association with the ERT by training coordinators to identify trauma, administer psychological first aid and remain resilient while performing this work.
Just as important, team members drew strength and inspiration from each other as they discussed incidents they covered as well as the larger societal pressures that contribute to the suicides, overdoses and mass shootings as well as workplace injuries and deaths.
Corporations’ pursuit of higher production and greater profits remains the single biggest obstacle to worker safety, explained Lee Morine, a member of Local 752L who works at the Cooper tire plant in Texarkana, Ark.
Besides serving union members and their families, he noted, the ERT’s work helps to identify the need for more robust disability assistance programs, higher safety standards and other gaps in various states. These insights help to inform the missions of the union’s Rapid Response, Legislative and Policy, and Health, Safety and Environment Departments.
As one of the ERT’s most senior coordinators, Morine had special insights to share at the training, describing his service on the ERT as a “ministry” that goes hand in hand with his volunteer work among at-risk youths and inmates at a county jail.
It breaks his heart to see fellow union members in pain. But it’s a privilege to stand with union members during their hour of need and “show this side of the union,” he said, referring to the USW’s commitment to the injured and fallen.
Leading by Example
No other union has a program like ours. But some are exploring the concept.
Representatives of the Ironworkers, the National Association of Letter Carriers, and the United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers all attended our training sessions in recent years because they’re interested in forming response teams of their own.
The ERT’s 20th anniversary provides yet another opportunity to assess our work and plan for the future.
We will continue to show up for USW members who need us. And we will continue to lead by example and stand in solidarity with other unions that want to extend the same compassionate, essential care to other workers.