A Bloomington union says it wants to be more involved in the city's response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Levi Combs is the president of the local American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees chapter. He says workers in Bloomington are uneasy right now because it’s unclear what the coming weeks hold for them.

He says a lot of membership has contacted him asking for specific details on plans from the city in "what-if scenarios."

Combs says he’s been trying to work with the city to get plans in motion. He says he wants more proactive discussion so he can provide more information to his coworkers.

“I think that we’re in such uncharted territory now that we don’t really know what’s going to work, so we have to take collaborative measures to get that to work," he says.

Mayor John Hamilton says the city is working with employee representatives to make changes as the situation continues to unfold.

Hamilton says the city just enacted a change that would allow workers going to a job site to use their personal vehicles, so that they could be one-to-a-car. He says employees will get mileage reimbursement.

Combs says he wishes the city had invited AFSCME Local 2487 to give input on the decision, because as of now, it’s unclear how they can seek reimbursement.

He says he appreciates that the city is trying to think of ways to protect worker safety, but logistically using personal vehicles will be hard to implement.

He says for some jobs required by city laborers, keeping a six-foot distance is not possible.

"A lot of what we do requires the help of another person," Combs says.

Combs says it seems like the city is still evaluating what further actions to take.

"And I can't knock them for that," Combs says. "I'd like to be a part of the process or at least be able to tell our workforce what is happening in those processes."

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