Near ground zero
Workers walk out over air quality
By Mary Owen
New York
Workers' frustrations about toxic air near ground zero
flared up here on Oct. 12. Management at the city's
Administration for Children's Services refused to let a union
delegation inside its lower Manhattan building to test the air
after workers complained of stinging eyes and sore throats.
Scores of city employees, mainly women of color, then left
their desks and poured into the street outside to meet with
their union leaders-a heroic act only four blocks east of the
highly militarized World Trade Center area.
All this happened while reporters had gathered for a
union-called news conference about the agency's refusal to get
to the bottom of air-quality problems. So the cameras were
rolling as the workers filled the street for the union
meeting.
Of the 3,000 workers in the building, most are members of DC
37 AFSCME, the city's largest public employee union. About
1,000 belong to DC 37's Social Service Employees Union Local
371, which has fought many battles for members' rights at
ACS.
Since Sept. 11, the city has been opening buildings around
the ground zero area and calling municipal employees back to
work. But the steadily burning fire at the World Trade Center
site, along with dust stirred up by the recovery work, has
created foul-smelling, smoky air that permeates lower
Manhattan.
According to the New York Committee for Occupational Safety
and Health, air testing by the Environmental Protection Agency
and the Occupational Safety & Health Administration has
generally found low or no levels of toxic contaminants,
including asbestos, although some results have been higher. But
experts at the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine say that while the
smoke and dust should not cause long-term harm to healthy
individuals, it could worsen the health of those with chronic
heart and lung conditions, such as asthma.
Air quality problems at ACS came to a head after the
building's windows were left open over a three-day weekend in
October. Workers came back to find their office air unbearable
and started calling the union for help.
Local 371 hired an independent environmental expert to take
air samples to see if the air was toxic. At first ACS agreed to
the testing, but reneged on the agreement right before the
tests were to start. So the morning of Oct. 12, leaders of
Local 371, DC 37 and several other locals that have members at
ACS held the news conference in front of the building to expose
the agency's actions.
The workers came out to join them in the street after their
union leaders were barred from going in alone, without the
testing expert, to meet with ACS representatives. This was a
violation of both labor law and a mayoral executive order.
After a spirited union meeting that blocked traffic for
about half an hour, it was agreed that a union volunteer would
wear personal sampling equipment into the building to get an
air sample for analysis. The meeting adjourned and the workers
began to return to the job, only to find management had locked
the doors, making them sign in to reenter the building-a
prelude to possible retribution that the unions will surely
fight.
Reprinted from the Nov. 1, 2001, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
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