Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations

Teamsters President James Hoffa Warns Trump Not To Move Too Quickly To Reopen

International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa is seen in the East Room of the White House in 2015.
Andrew Harnik
/
AP
International Brotherhood of Teamsters President James P. Hoffa is seen in the East Room of the White House in 2015.

Teamsters President James Hoffa is cautioning against reopening businesses across the country too quickly, for fear of endangering workers. Hoffa was one of a dozen leaders from the corporate world, labor and trade associations on a conference call with President Trump to discuss that topic Wednesday.

Hoffa later told NPR that he urged the president to make sure everything is in place for a safe return to the workforce. He said that means getting testing in place so people can get a test easily if they need one, and he said results need to be available much more quickly. He said a worker can't afford to take two weeks off the job to wait for a test result. Hoffa also says job sites need to be fully stocked with everything from masks to disinfectant wipes.

"If somebody's been laid off and they're gonna go back to work," he stressed, "you can't ask them to go back to an unsafe workplace where they're gonna get sick."

Hoffa said of the conference call that Trump "was very courteous." He said there was none of the combativeness we've seen in recent televised media briefings. He said the president dubbed the group that had dialed-in the "Great American Renewal Task Force." Hoffa said the virtual gathering came together quickly, adding that he'd only heard it was happening Tuesday night. He said there were no specific plans laid out for further discussions between the task force and Trump.

As president, Trump has slashed regulations as a way to help businesses boost profits. Hoffa says he used his time on the call to stress that the pandemic will require rigorous new regulations to make sure workers are protected. He said strict rules will need to be written and enforced by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Since taking office Trump has done the opposite, limiting OSHA's regulatory power and dramatically reducing the number of workplace inspections. Hoffa says Trump mush reverse that practice. "We need OSHA more than ever. You've gotta put teeth in OSHA."

The Teamster leader added, "that's very reasonable, and yeah, it's gonna cost more money."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

You're most likely to find NPR's Don Gonyea on the road, in some battleground state looking for voters to sit with him at the local lunch spot, the VFW or union hall, at a campaign rally, or at their kitchen tables to tell him what's on their minds. Through countless such conversations over the course of the year, he gets a ground-level view of American elections. Gonyea is NPR's National Political Correspondent, a position he has held since 2010. His reports can be heard on all NPR News programs and at NPR.org. To hear his sound-rich stories is akin to riding in the passenger seat of his rental car, traveling through Iowa or South Carolina or Michigan or wherever, right along with him.