SMART union boosts mask-makers-donors with free nose-strips
By BERRY CRAIG
AFT Local 1360
No matter how lovingly stitched for free, cloth face masks need metal nose clips to fit right and help keep the coronavirus away.
The International Association of Sheet Metal, Air, Rail, and Transportation Workers—SMART for short—might be a mask-maker's one-stop shop for the little aluminum gizmos. There's no cost for the clips, including delivery to your doorstep.
“Our SMART Army coalition is making and distributing the nose pieces for groups and individuals throughout the U.S. that are sewing face masks to be donated to those who need them—from health officials battling the coronavirus on the front lines to at-risk family and friends,” said Jeremy Waugh, an organizer with Louisville SMART Local 110.
SMART represents hourly workers at metal fabricating facilities nationwide. Local 110 members work at companies across Kentucky.
The union started the program earlier this month. “We contacted a bunch of our contractors to see who would make the nose pieces,” Waugh explained. “They’re three inches long, a quarter-inch wide and really thin. Not everybody’s equipment is capable of shearing something like that.”
Facilities that could turn out the strips “jumped in head first,” Waugh said. “They were all over it.”
Companies make the nose pieces for free, and the union doesn't charge for shipping and handling.
Mask makers in need of strips can apply for them online. “The international set up a request form online. (Click here if you think you're eligible.) All you have to do is put in a request for how many you might need or want,” Waugh said.
After requests are approved, the nose pieces will be delivered to the SMART local that is closest to where the mask-maker-donors are.
“Anything for Kentucky comes through us, but we have also supplied nose pieces to Tennessee and a few to Alabama and West Virginia,” Waugh said.
He suggested it might be quicker for Kentucky mask providers to contact him directly via email: jeremy@smart110.org.
“We just want to get the nose pieces to the people who need them as quickly as we can,” Waugh said.
So far, members of 55 SMART locals from coast to coast have produced and disbursed 750,000 strips across the US and Canada. Local 110 is fabricating and shipping out approximately 10,000 – “and counting,” according to Waugh.
Local 110 has earned plaudits from Bill Finn, state director of the Kentucky State Building and Construction Trades Council for offering "to manufacture and deliver the strips to those in need who are helping to meet the call from Gov. Beshear to pull together at this time. Many thanks to Local 110 and the other SMART Local unions and their contractors to step up to the plate when called."