Safety Survey // The Tailgate Newsletter #5

TAILGATE

The Newsletter of the Tower Climber’s Union: A Union For Tower Hands, By Tower Hands

Edition 5 // January, 11 2023

What do we want for the New Year? We want our Union, a SAFE workplace, Living Wage, Benefits, and above all, RESPECT. As we turn toward 2023, we commit to fight to get it, working together.

Our Member’s Words: “It’s Tough on Your Body”

The Guardian interviewed TCU/CWA Organizing Committee member Ryan Dupal about something we all know about so well: the dangers we face on the job every day, in all kinds of weather.

Inclement winter weather poses a lot of risks and increases workloads for cell tower climbers to maintain and conduct repairs, said Ryan Dupal, a tower foreman and member of Tower Climbers Union (TCU)/CWA.  

“The physical stress it does to you and your mentality when you go on to a site in frigid temperatures … It doesn’t even have to be -6F out. If it’s 20F out, a few hundred feet in the air the temperature is a lot different, and the windchill is a huge factor,” said Dupal. “All of that is really tough. It’s tough on your body, your lungs. Your joints ache more. If there’s any bare skin, there is possible tissue damage, and you don’t even realize it because you’re so busy until you get down.” 

Read the entire article here.

We Want to Hear From You - Take The Tower Technician Safety Survey

As Ryan said, and we all know, our biggest fight is for safety on the job. To create an effective plan to improve safety in the field, we need to collect data from workers in our Tower Technician Safety Survey. Tower Hands know better than anyone else what the problems are out there. We have a goal to get at least 100 surveys filled out so we can identify the top safety issues and have the data to back our demands! We’ll use the report that we create from the data in the survey to push for meaningful changes in the industry. Make your voice heard. Fill out the survey here.

Become a Monthly Dues Paying Member Today!

Let’s build our union! Now is the perfect time to convert your membership into a monthly dues paying membership, or to join for the first time. Monthly dues of $20 and membership benefits (there’s a lot of perks!) begin when we have 150 monthly dues paying members signed up. Founding members who have already paid a $20 membership fee will get their first month of benefits at no cost. Click here for more information

Get Involved

Reach out if you have any questions, comments or concerns. You can contact CWA organizer Plinio Cruz-Alvarez at [email protected] or 347-398-2005.

Stay safe, sisters and brothers.