November 29, 2023 | 8:00AM – 12:00PM | 708 Broadway, New York, NY
Description: Join the Complex Public Health Disasters Lab as we facilitate a discussion between union leaders and researchers on the role of labor unions in protecting the workforce during a pandemic. Speakers will present their experiences during the COVID-19 Pandemic and will share their insights on preparing for the next pandemic event.
Recording
Moderators
Dr. Robyn Gershon
Robyn Gershon, MHS., DrPH, is a Clinical Professor, Department of Epidemiology at NYU, School of Global Public Health. Her work has focused on barriers and facilitators to disaster preparedness– especially with respect to vulnerable populations and essential workers. Her research is designed to inform policy and practice, as exemplified by her landmark “World Trade Center Evacuation Study,” which helped lead to the first changes in the New York City high rise business occupancy fire safety codes in more than 30 years.
The NYC Transit study was launched in the spring of 2020. Working closely with their collaborators at the Transport Workers’ Union (TWU), Local 100, Dr. Gershon and co-Investigator colleague Dr. Alexis Merdjanoff and others conducted and published the first study on the impact of COVID-19 on transit workers. Soon after, the team was funded by the National Institutes of Health to explore in greater depth the impact an to develop and test interventions to protect front-line essential workers from this and future pandemic events.
Dr. Jacob Remes
Jacob Remes is clinical associate professor of history in NYU’s Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where he directs the Initiative for Critical Disaster Studies. He is the co-editor, with Andy Horowitz, of Critical Disaster Studies (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021) and the author of Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progressive Era (University of Illinois Press, 2016). He is a founding member of the editorial collective of the Journal of Disaster Studies and a co-editor of the Penn Press book series Critical Studies of Risk and Disaster. Trained as a labor and working-class historian, he is on the organizing committee of Contract Faculty United-UAW, the union of continuing contract faculty at NYU.
Jonathan Rosen
Jonathan is the Principal Consultant for AJ Rosen & Associates LLC, providing occupational safety and industrial hygiene services to labor unions, government agencies, and organizations throughout the U.S. Jonathan works for the National Clearinghouse for Worker Safety & Health Training, National Institutes of Environmental Health Sciences Worker Education and Training Program. In that capacity he has developed worker and leadership training programs on resilience, stress, trauma, opioids and the workplace, and infection prevention and control. Jonathan served as Director of the Occupational Health & Safety Department for NYS Public Employees Federation, AFL-CIO for 22 years. Jonathan has been co-investigator on several federal NIOSH intervention research grants. Jonathan completed a master’s degree in industrial health at the University of Michigan and is a Certified Industrial Hygienist.
Speakers
Paul Landsbergis
Dr. Landsbergis is an Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences, SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University School of Public Health. He received a PhD in Epidemiology from Columbia University and an EdD in Labor Studies from Rutgers University. He has extensive research and teaching experience on social epidemiology, work organization, work stress, workplace interventions, lean production, socioeconomic health inequities, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, musculoskeletal disorders and psychological disorders. Dr. Landsbergis served as a member of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s (NIOSH’s) Intervention Effectiveness Research Team, and was a member of the National Research Council’s Committee on the Health and Safety Needs of Older Workers.
Daniel Hagen
Dr. Daniel Hagen is a social and psychiatric epidemiologist who recently completed his PhD in Public Health at NYU GPH. Previously, he studied social sciences at the Universities of Mannheim, Bonn, and Copenhagen before majoring in Epidemiology in the International MPH program at the French School of Public Health (EHESP) in Paris. He has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, as a project and science manager for the funding initiative “Research Networks for Health Innovations in Sub-Saharan Africa”, and for the Regional Office for Africa of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) in Nairobi. As part of the NYC Transit Worker Study team, Daniel is particularly interested in psychiatric and psychosocial ramifications of the COVID-19 pandemic among essential workers.
Michael Cziner
Michael Cziner is an epidemiology doctoral student at NYU GPH. Previously, Michael received his MPH in epidemiology from the George Washington University (GW). Michael worked as a Clinical Data Assistant in the Infection Prevention and Control Department at NYU Langone Health and as a Graduate Research Assistant for the GW Antibiotic Resistance Action Center. He has also served as a federal contractor, working as an epidemiologist for the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Global Emerging Infections Surveillance Branch under the Department of Defense. Michael is interested in researching social and ecological impacts on pandemics, emerging infectious diseases, and zoonoses.
Panelists
Robert Kelley
Robert Kelley is Vice President of Station Department. He started with NYCT in 2006, when was hired as a CTA. In 2007, he began helping fellow members with issues they had in the workplace. In 2011, because of his record of activism, union officers approached him to become Shop Steward, and he ran for office and won election to the Executive Board in 2012. Then, in 2018, he won for Division Chair. In 2021 he ran for Vice President and won. Since he has been in office, Brother Kelley has negotiated the “Station Agent of the Future” agreement, secured a no-layoff clause for Cleaners, and has expanded promotional opportunities for Cleaners. VP Robert Kelley has vigorously championed the cause of Station Agents and Cleaners who have been assaulted, organizing rallies outside of courthouses around the City. He also initiated court action which saved the jobs of CTA’s in Washington Heights who were facing job loss.
Steve Higgins
Steve Higgins is a power division chairman at the Transport Workers Union, Local 100. He was born in Glendale, Queens and graduated from Thomas Edison Highschool. Soon after he started working for the New York City Transit. He has been an elected TWU officer since 1993, holding numerous positions before his current position for the Maintenance of Way (MOW) division.
Joseph Diapola
Joseph DiPaola, a veteran Bus Maintainer, is TWU Local 100’s lead Safety Representative for 16,000 Bus Operators and Maintainers. He previously worked as a mechanic for 22 years before joining NYCTA/MaBstoa. DiPaola is also a USMC veteran. He started his career with New York City Transit in 2007 and was appointed by TWU to the Safety Department in 2016.
Brian Sherlock
Brian Sherlock is a safety specialist for the Amalgamated Transit Union International and a member of several committees at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Transportation Research Board. He is also on the American Public Transit Association Safety Committee and the Federal Transportation Administration Standards Advisory Group. He was a Seattle bus driver for forty years, which has informed his work including the development of the International Transportation Learning Center’s “Bus of the Future” project.
Stephen Rechner
Stephen Rechner is the President of the Union of Clerical, Administrative & Technical Staff at NYU (UCATS) and a Director, At-large, with New York State United Teachers (NYSUT). He is the first and, to-date, the only member of the NYSUT board who works in a clerical job title; he is still a full-time Administrative Aide with NYU. In 2018, Rechner was NYSUT’s School-Related Professional of the Year – equivalent to Teacher of the Year, but selected from the 90,000 NYSUT members who are not teachers. He was a UCATS shop steward from 1989-1999, inspired to union leadership after being on strike with the union against NYU for 3 weeks in 1988.
Christine O’Reilly
Christine O’Reilly is a Union Representative for Local 338 RWDSU/UFCW, a labor union representing 13,000 working men and women across New York and New Jersey. She joined the Local 338 team in 2009, working in the union’s call center and rising up the ranks to become an organizer in 2012. Soon after, she was promoted to Union Representative in 2013 and has spent the last 10 years representing workers across LI and NYC. She currently covers western Suffolk, representing grocery workers at ShopRite and Stop & Shop. Christine has a bachelor’s degree from Adelphi University and two certificates from Cornell in Labor Studies and Union Leadership. Christine comes from a union family—her husband is a member of CSEA—and is the proud mother of two children, Brianna and Brody.
Lisa Baum
Lisa Baum is the Lead Occupational Health and Safety Representative for the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA). With over 25 years’ experience in the field of occupational safety and health, she has advocated for worker safety in a wide range of work environments, but for the last 9 years has specialized in the hazardous conditions experienced in the healthcare workplace including infectious diseases, workplace violence, chemical exposures and patient handling-related musculoskeletal injuries. Much of her work in the past 4 years has focused on COVID-19 and pandemic preparedness protections for the healthcare workforce.
Charlene Obernauer
Charlene Obernauer has been NYCOSH’s Executive Director since 2014, leading campaigns for safer workplaces in New York. She co-founded the New York Healthy Nail Salons Coalition, advocating for legislation to improve nail salon conditions. Charlene is an advocate for construction safety and played a pivotal role in passing Carlos’ Law.Before NYCOSH, she served as the Executive Director of Long Island Jobs with Justice, where she expanded the organization’s budget and led organizing projects. Charlene actively participates in advisory councils and holds a B.A. from Stony Brook University and an M.A. in Liberal Studies from the Graduate Center at CUNY.