Brothers & Sisters:

URGENT ACTION NEEDED.  House Democrats are expected to release and vote on a new COVID response bill very soon.  We understand from Hill contacts, that the current draft of the bill includes the GROW Act. 

Call your Members of Congress NOW and tell them to oppose GROW in the next COVID relief bill.  If you have already called, thank you, but call again.  Call (202) 224-3121 to be connected with your Representative.  To learn who represents you, use Congress's Find My Representative tool (https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative).

On the phone, be sure to cover the key points:

• Millions of union members and retirees oppose the GROW Act.
• If Congress had already passed the GROW Act and it was law now, my retirement benefits would be cut 21%.
• If GROW was law now, the benefits of composite plan participants would be cut 70%, and the vested benefits would be cut 25%.
• Please don't give composite plans special exemptions from current law.
• If any plan goes composite, I'm harmed because they will dump their unfunded liabilities on the rest of us.

Thank you again, for protecting the Retirement Security of Teamster members and their families! 

ACTION NEEDED NOW! PLEASE CONTACT YOUR LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE! 
 

Transportation Funding Talking Points:

• There is an issue with the current model of using ridership in OSPI’s transportation budget allocation. The transportation allocation is subject to a claw-back in February of 2021 if there is no change in the model.
   

• We are working together with the other unions representing K-12 workers to address the current dependence on ridership, as it is an outdated mode of allocating transportation budget monies. We need your help at the district level to effectively advocate for change in the allocation model.
   

• This means we need our members to be secure in their position this coming fall. Transportation employees should be retained so that districts can both serve students through the school year and ensure stability when school returns to 100% in-person.     We need a commitment from school districts to retain CDL drivers, because:
   

1. CDL drivers are hard to recruit and loss of drivers would result in a shortage when school resumes,
    
2. Drivers over 60 may choose to take retirement if and when there is no employment this fall; losing these employees will also hinder a return to in-person school.
    

• We want to work together with you to retain transportation workers and provide the best education experience for our students.
   
• K-12 school bus drivers across every major metropolitan area in the State of Washington to strongly urge immediate action to prevent the imposition of COVID pandemic-level ridership counts in calculating K-12 student transportation funding.
   
• By not acting, significant harm will occur both to communities across our state and to the overall viability of our K-12 transportation system. Maintaining both the ongoing availability of our drivers and their readiness to restart normal transportation operations as schools ultimately return to standard classroom operations.
   

• Any break in the continuity of student transportation operations would risk the scattering of our workforce and the creation of significant downstream costs and delays as subsequent attempts to reassemble the workforce would require large amounts of time and funds for retraining and recertifying drivers. Such delays would exacerbate the already severe impacts of the pandemic in a manner that is highly disruptive to students and needlessly expensive to taxpayers.
   

Ask your local legislators to tell their budget writers and leadership bus drivers need to continue to be employed now and throughout the 2020-2021 school year.

Most importantly, TELL YOUR STORY! Politicians approach policy from their own limited student experience, so tell your story.

Here’s how you can find your local representative:

https://app.leg.wa.gov/DistrictFinder/

Or contact your Business Agent or Joint Council Political Director Shaunie Wheeler at Shaunie@jc28.org

     July 31, 2020

Two key school nutrition bills have been introduced, and we need your help to raise awareness and support! Safe and consistent student access to school meals this fall continues to be threatened by unprecedented challenges caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Please take a few minutes to write your legislators urging them to support these bills.

The Pandemic Child Hunger Prevention Act, introduced by House Committee on Education and Labor Chairman Robert C. "Bobby" Scott (VA-03), would guarantee every child has safe access to healthy school meals during SY 2020-21. With a multitude of families newly-eligible for free and reduced-price meals, offering meals to all students at no charge spares overburdened schools the massive task of distributing and processing meal applications and reduces the stigma for children who depend on free meals.  TAKE ACTION!

H.R. 7764, The Child Nutrition Relief Act of 2020, introduced by U.S. Rep. Nydia Velázquez (NY-7) would allow USDA to extend all COVID-19 school feeding waivers through June 30, 2021. Extending these waivers will allow school meal programs to seamlessly continue grab-and-go meal pick up for distance learners, serve meals to students in the classroom or adjust meal service in the event of a sudden COVID-19 school closure. TAKE ACTION!

Read more about these bills and SNA's support of these measures in SNA's press release.