Are Postal Workers Being
Used As Guinea Pigs?
Anthrax has been discovered on four
machines at a Manhattan mail processing center, but
Postal officials are refusing to shut it down for cleanup
and APWU officials are threatening a lawsuit, saying
postal workers won't work in a contaminated building.
''Our members will not work in a postal facility that is
confirmed as contaminated,'' APWU president-elect William
Burrus told reporters after attending a funeral for
Thomas Morris Jr., one of two postal workers who died
from anthrax earlier in the week.
''We made one mistake in the past by not moving quickly
enough in Brentwood,'' the central Washington DC mail
facility, Burrus said, ''I'm not placing blame, but we
don't want to make that mistake again.''
According to an AP news story, the local chapter of the
union is promising to go to federal court to force a
shutdown of the Morgan Station Processing and
Distribution Center if postal officials don't close it
for cleaning.
"Close the facility, test the people, clean it up
and send people back when it's safe,'' said Louis
Nikolaidis, attorney for the New York Metro chapter of
the American Postal Workers Union.
The Morgan Processing and Distribution Center is located
in Manhatten, New York and employs about 5,000 workers.
"It's time for the Postal Service to start putting
workers first," local union President William Smith
said. "They want the workers of New York Metro to be
guinea pigs and I'm not going to stand for that
foolishness."
The Postal Service disclosed the anthrax contamination at
the Morgan facility Thursday. The four machines have been
cordoned off and postal officials say they will be
cleaned after further testing.
According to the AP report, no postal employees in New
York have tested positive for anthrax, but Cipro has been
offered to 7,000 workers at Morgan and other New York
facilities.
In sharp contrast to the treatment postal workers were
getting in New York, employees of the Supreme Court were
sent home Friday after anthrax was found on a filter at a
remote mail facility that processes the court's mail.
Though no bacteria has been found in the court, the
entire building is now closed for testing.
Dan Sullivan <apwfulash@aol.com>
Southwest Michigan Area Local
Editor
- Friday, October 26, 2001 at 18:59:39 (PDT)
Source: The 21st
Century Postal Worker, General Business Page posting @
http://www.21cpw.com/general.html
Copyright 2001
© THE MICHIGAN POSTAL WORKER
— ALL RIGHTS RESERVED —
|