{"id":10657,"date":"2020-11-12T09:57:39","date_gmt":"2020-11-12T17:57:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/?p=10657"},"modified":"2023-02-26T06:14:47","modified_gmt":"2023-02-26T14:14:47","slug":"foothill-transit-refuses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/foothill-transit-refuses\/","title":{"rendered":"Foothill Transit Refuses to Reinstate Driver in Treatment for Breast Cancer Who Was Fired for Enforcing Mask Mandate; 13 Bus Drivers Now Infected With COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Foothill Transit Refuses to Reinstate Driver in Treatment for Breast Cancer Who Was Fired for Enforcing Mask Mandate; 13 Bus Drivers Now Infected With COVID-19<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013<\/strong> On Sept. 17, 2020, a Foothill Transit bus driver in treatment for breast cancer was fired by Foothill\u2019s contractor, Keolis Transit<\/a>, for demanding that a passenger put on a mask before boarding the bus and for complaining about the company\u2019s failure to outfit the buses with plastic partitions or to supply drivers with adequate PPE. The company has thus far refused to reinstate the driver or change their policies and now at least thirteen Foothill Transit drivers employed by Keolis are infected with COVID-19.
\u201cI\u2019m still under a doctor\u2019s care,\u201d said Kessel Davis, who returned to work in May following breast cancer surgery. \u201cI have to be really careful for my health. I don\u2019t sleep at night since I was fired. They\u2019re asking us to risk our lives to drive passengers.\u201d Kessel, who had worked for the agency for the past three years, said the company told her, \u2018We don\u2019t pay you to enforce the rules, just drive the bus.\u2019
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has reported that people of color are significantly more likely to contract and die of COVID-19<\/a> than other populations. U.S. African-Americans are 2.6x more likely to become infected, and 2.1x more likely to die than the average. U.S. Latinos are 2.8x more likely to become infected and 1.1x more likely to die. 
Eric Tate, Secretary-Treasurer of Teamsters Local 848<\/a>, which represents Davis and 290 other drivers, says that Keolis is behaving recklessly and hypocritically. \u201cKeolis won\u2019t even allow anyone to come into their headquarters without a mask but they\u2019re asking bus drivers to pick up belligerent passengers who aren\u2019t cooperating. That\u2019s just wrong and the disregard for workers\u2019 lives, the majority of whom are people of color, is absolutely shocking.\u201d
Los Angeles County mandates the wearing of masks in public and Foothill Transit states clearly on their website<\/a> that passengers must wear masks.
Keolis\u2019 position \u2013 and Foothill\u2019s unwillingness to intervene to enforce their own policies \u2013 is surprising as the company has sought publicity for donating masks<\/a> in communities across America that they serve. Nevertheless, in September, bus drivers employed by Keolis in Reno and Sparks, NV, sued the company for failure to enforce mask mandates on buses<\/a> and thereby endangering the lives of drivers and other passengers.
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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:<\/strong> Thursday, November 12, 2020
PRESS CONTACT: <\/strong>Barbara Maynard, 323-351-9321, barb@actnowstrategies.com<\/a><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOS ANGELES, CA \u2013 On Sept. 17, 2020, a Foothill Transit bus driver in treatment for breast cancer was fired by Foothill\u2019s contractor, Keolis Transit, for demanding that a passenger put on a mask before boarding the bus and for complaining about the company\u2019s failure to outfit the buses with plastic partitions or to supply drivers with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10666,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[105,104],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10657"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10657"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10657\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45002,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10657\/revisions\/45002"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10666"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10657"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10657"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teamsters848.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10657"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}