[http://www.nycosh.org/Update14_Oct-Dec_2002.html]
NYCOSH Update on Safety
and Health Archive
October -
December 2002
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NYCOSH UPDATE October 28, 2002
EPA Lower Manhattan
cleanup is sharply criticized
This week the
EPA made public its first progress report on its long-delayed
program to test and clean residences in Lower Manhattan that
may be contaminated with toxic fallout from the collapsed World
Trade Center. The announcement was met with sharp criticism
from environmental and occupational health activists, residents,
and the member of Congress who represents Lower Manhattan.
According to
EPA, 4,790 individuals have requested an EPA cleanup of their
residences, out of at least 20,000 eligible residences. EPA-supervised
crews began to clean apartments in mid-September. A month later,
138 apartments had been cleaned and found to be free of hazardous
asbestos levels after cleaning. In apartments where a cleanup
is requested, the EPA does not test prior to cleaning.
Also, 1,146 residents
had chosen the EPA's "test only" option, under which
EPA will test a residence for the presence of asbestos and perform
a cleanup only if asbestos is detected at a level that the EPA
deems to be hazardous. The "test-only" program began
operation in late August. EPA reported that it has tested 108
"test-only" residences and found three of them to be
contaminated with hazardous levels of asbestos, requiring a cleanup.
EPA Assistant
Regional Administrator Kathleen Callahan said that the initial
results were encouraging, but urged caution. "This, by no
means, is meant to provide statistically significant information
about the overall expectations of the future," said Callahan.
"But, we want to make the data that we collect available
within a reasonable time."
The EPA announcement drew scornful criticism from Rep. Jerrold
Nadler (D-NY), who represents Lower Manhattan. "These results
are incomplete, unsubstantiated, and illusionary," he said.
"The EPA has demonstrated in the past that they would like
nothing better than to declare the area safe, so they can pack
up their bags and leave the Trade Center case behind them. And
they continue to prove that today. What better way to do that
than by releasing misleading test results that seem to say, ‘Everything
seems fine.' Their continuing aversion to telling the complete
truth to the people affected is immoral, bordering on criminal,
since lives may be on the line," he added.
Nadler leveled
three criticisms at the EPA cleanup, that the testing was inadequate,
that the interpretation of the test results was misleading, and
that the program excluded areas of Manhattan and Brooklyn where
a cleanup might be needed. A statement released by Nadler's
office, which is available on the Internet at http://www.nycosh.org/nadler2.htm,
includes a detailed explanation of each aspect of the cleanup
that Nadler objects to.
Other environmental
and occupational health activists echo Nadler's criticisms and
offer additional ones. Members of 9/11 Environmental Action,
an ad hoc group of Lower Manhattan residents and their supporters,
point out that the EPA's outreach campaign seems designed to
attract the smallest possible number of residents by misinforming
them about the potential risk they face from WTC contamination.
For example, one of the EPA advertisements for the cleanup reads:
"For some
living in lower Manhattan, the possibility that dust from the
collapse of the World Trade Center may linger in their homes
has raised concerns. That is why the EPA, along with FEMA, New
York City, New York State and OSHA is offering residents of lower
Manhattan the option of having their homes professionally cleaned
and/or tested for airborne asbestos contamination free of charge.
While scientific data does not point to any significant long-term
health risks, people should not have to live with uncertainty
about the future."
"If someone
doesn't know anything about how dangerous the toxic material
from the collapse of the Trade Center is, that ad certainly doesn't
give them any reason to want a cleanup," said Jo Polett,
a member of 9/11 Environmental Action.
Another widely
criticized aspect of the cleanup is its inadequate testing methods."Neither
of the test methods that EPA is offering to residents is capable
of detecting contaminants other than asbestos," said NYCOSH
Industrial Hygienist Dave Newman, "and neither of EPA's
two testing options can reliably measure asbestos fibers that
may be imbedded in carpets or upholstery and have the potential
to be released through normal activities at a later time. Since
other contaminants are not being tested, and EPA's own studies
show that embedded fibers can be released over time at levels
that can pose a health threat, I am concerned that some residences
may receive clearance from EPA even though they may still contaminated."
NYCOSH's
9/11-related work is conducted with in partnership with the United
Church of Christ's National Disaster Ministries, with additional
support from the September 11 Fund.
--
From the October 28, 2002 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
New York contractor faces manslaughter charge after
five undocumented workers die
A New York contractor
who was responsible for a scaffolding collapse in Manhattan that
killed five workers and seriously injured four was indicted October
10 on charges of manslaughter and assault.
All of the dead
an injured workers were immigrants, and many of them were undocumented.
Robert Morgenthau,
the Manhattan district attorney, said his office paid special
attention to occupational fatalities involving construction laborers
because the workers were often illegal immigrants who were reluctant
to come forward. According to prosecutors, most of the 20 workers
at the construction site at the time of the collapse were illegal
immigrants from Mexico and South America who were paid $7 an
hour, in cash. The contractor, Phillip Minucci, faces five counts
of second-degree manslaughter and four counts of assault.
The indictment
was announced a week after a similar indictment of a construction
contractor involved in a fatal collapse of another Manhattan
building. In that case the worker who died was an immigrant.
According to
the district attorney, the 13-story exterior scaffolding that
collapsed was too heavy to safely support its own weight, let
alone the added weight of workers and equipment. In addition
to the criminal charges against Minucci, his firm has received
OSHA citations for 2 willful and 4 serious violations, carrying
a total fine of $146,600.
--
From the October 28, 2002 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
NYCOSH and union coalition press EPA for expanded
Manhattan cleanup
When EPA reversed
itself and announced that it would take responsibility for cleaning
up Lower Manhattan residences that had been contaminated with
fall-out from the World Trade Center, many unions and safety
and health activists were critical of the plan's failure to cover
workplaces and its lack of protections for the workers who would
perform the cleanup.
Many unions expressed
dissatisfaction with the EPA plan, prompting NYCOSH to call a
meeting of the unions whose members would be affected by the
cleanup. At an organizing meeting in June, which was attended
by representatives of a dozen unions and NYCOSH, the group raised
many criticisms of the EPA plan, and agreed to focus on pressing
EPA to extend the scope of the cleanup to include workplaces
(the EPA plan is restricted to residences) and to require that
the cleanup be conducted in a manner that would protect the cleanup
workers and bystanders from the hazardous materials being cleaned
up
In July, NYCOSH
and representatives of 11 unions -- Professional Staff Congress;
Teamster Locals 237 and 804; Service Employees International
Union Local 32B-J; Association of Legal Aid Attorneys; Asbestos,
Lead and Hazardous Waste Laborers; Transport Workers Union Local
100; 1199 SEIU New York Health and Human Services Employees Union,
New York State Nurses Association; United Federation of Teachers;
and Communications Workers of America District 1 -- met with
EPA to demand that the cleanup plan be expanded to cover workplaces.
At the meeting
EPA representatives, including Kathleen Callahan, the Assistant
Administrator of EPA Region 2, told the union representatives
that the decision to clean up residences and not workplaces was
dictated by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which had
provided the funds to clean up only residences. They added that
EPA would consider the unions' request to expand the cleanup,
and respond to the unions.
The unions also
pressed EPA to conduct the cleanup in accordance with guidelines
that would adequately protect cleanup workers and people who
are in the vicinity of the cleanup. The unions pointed out that
the EPA's blueprint for the cleanup called for all the debris
cleaned up to be disposed of as hazardous waste, but did not
provide that the workers doing the cleanup get appropriate protection.
The EPA representatives
said they would study the unions' request and give them a formal
response. EPA agreed to hold a second meeting in August, but
then canceled the meeting and agreed to a September meeting,
which was also canceled by EPA. Finally on October 3, EPA met
with the unions and NYCOSH. Also in attendance at the second
meeting was a representative of Rep. Jerrold Nadler, whose district
includes the World Trade Center site. At the second meeting,
EPA said that it was not in a position to give the unions a definitive
response. The EPA representatives reiterated that it had no
plans to include workplaces in the cleanup or to provide cleanup
workers with the protections of a hazardous waste cleanup. The
EPA representatives also said that EPA would provide a formal
response to the unions' requests within a month.
A week after
the second meeting, Rep. Nadler wrote to the head of EPA, saying
"I am concerned by EPA's decision to include only residences
in the cleanup effort and by its decision to not require employers
to provide respiratory protection and other personal protective
equipment." Nadler's letter continues "World Trade
Center dust a debris, which has been documented to contain hazardous
substances, pollutants and contaminants, is know to have been
widely and unevenly distributed both in individual buildings
and throughout New York City. There is no reason to believe
that workplaces or other indoor environments are any less need
of cleanup than are residences."
NYCOSH Executive
Director Joel Shufro said the EPA's refusal to clean up workplaces
made no sense: "The only way EPA can justify its refusal
to clean up workplaces is to assume that workplaces were magically
spared from contamination or that employers and building owners
or managers have adequately cleaned up already. Neither assumption
can be justified. The EPA is treating workers like second-class
citizens."
"EPA's failure
to require cleanup workers to be properly equipped with respiratory
protection and personal protective equipment is equally irrational,"
Shufro continued. The EPA's own document states that ‘All
waste generated shall be treated as asbestos-containing material.'
In other words, dust removed from residential premises is presumed
to be hazardous waste and must be disposed of according to hazardous
waste regulations, but the workers involved in the removal of
the dust are not required to be protected with respirators or
PPE. The workers are being treated worse than dirt."
--
From the October 28, 2002 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
NYCOSH
UPDATE October 9, 2002
Comings and goings - Tony Mazzocchi
Tony Mazzocchi, who was widely
referred to as the father of the modern health and safety movement,
died on October 5 at the age of 76.
Tony was an activist in the labor
and occupational safety and health movements for all of his adult
life. He played a pioneering role in establishing occupational
health as an issue for labor unions and in promoting legislation
to protect workers from occupational hazards. He helped to initiate
the national movement to set up local Committees for Occupational
Safety and Health, including NYCOSH.
In recent years, while continuing
to support the health and safety movement, he helped to establish
the Just Transition Alliance, involving unions and environmental
organizations in protecting the interests of workers and communities
that might be adversely effected by moves to protect the environment
or workers from toxic materials. As national organizer for the
Labor Party, which he founded in 1996, he was an advocate for
single-payer national health insurance, tuition-free college
and the reform of labor laws to increase the ability of workers
to form and maintain unions. At every stage in his career of
advocating for diverse causes, he strongly championed the empowerment
of workers to control conditions that they face.
For much of his career, Tony
was active in the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union (OCAW),
serving as a local union president, legislative director, health
and safety director, vice president and secretary-treasurer.
Tony got his start in a lifetime
of work on behalf of the movement for occupational safety and
health when he went to work in a chemical plant in 1950. As he
recently told an interviewer, "Worker safety at that time
was only understood in terms of physical trauma: getting hit
with something, falling from something or getting your hand stuck
in something. Chemical hazards weren't part of our consciousness."
In 1953 Tony was elected president
of his union local in Roslyn, New York, a position he held until
1965. In the 1950s he led the local to became a force in opposition
to nuclear weapons testing. As part of that struggle, his local
collaborated with environmental scientist Barry Commoner to collect
baby teeth and test them for the presence of strontium 90, a
radioactive isotope byproduct of nuclear tests that collects
in bones and teeth. The discovery that the teeth were radioactive
was a powerful argument in support of a ban on above-ground nuclear
weapons testing. (The members of the NYCOSH staff are now represented
by the same union local that Tony headed.)
By the mid-1960s he and others
in what was then the Gas, Coke and Chemical Workers began to
agitate for a federal worker safety law. "There were a whole
series of events that raised consciousness among workers based
on the revelations being made by the environmental movement,
which identified toxins in the communities," Tony said.
"The realization was not lost on us that, ‘Hell, we
produce this stuff and we're exposed to much higher concentrations
than any community.' There were thousands of substances in the
workplace. There also was a great deal of empirical evidence
collected by workers who observed that people were getting sick
and dying."
Beginning in 1967, Tony organized
a coast-to-coast series of workers' conferences, giving rank-and-file
workers the opportunity to testify about their hazardous working
conditions. Then he helped to bring the workers to Washington
to testify and to lobby. The work that Tony did laid the foundation
and then insured the passage of the Occupational Safety and Health
Act in 1970. Tony also played major roles in the passage of the
Clean Air Act and the Natural Gas Pipeline Safety Act.
Realizing that most doctors had
no understanding of the potential sources of occupational disease,
Tony proposed the Montefiore Medical Center in the Bronx set
up a summer internship to give medical students a hands-on introduction
to the health impact of workplace hazards and practical intervention
strategies. Under the program, students were assigned to consult
with members of a local union about their working conditions
and health hazards. Based on that consultation and other research,
the medical students would prepare a report and an educational
program for use by the union. "Many of the interns in Tony's
program went on to distinguished careers in occupational health,
working with and advocating for workers and unions, in striking
contrast to the results of most of the programs in the field,
which are heavily weighted toward the interests of corporations
and not the employees," said NYCOSH Executive Director Joel
Shufro.
Tony went on to bring a whole series of institutions into being,
including the Labor Institute, the health and safety policy journal
New Solutions, the COSH movement and the Labor Party. "Tony
has an amazing ability to not only conceive of brilliant projects,
but to bring them to fruition and set them up to be self-sustaining,"
said NYCOSH Board Chair William F. Henning, Jr.
Tony was not only the intellectual
father of the "right to know" and "right to act,"
movements, he coined the phrases that identify them. His position,
which is now partly codified in federal regulations and many
local laws, was that workers and anyone else who might be exposed
to a chemical have the right to know what the hazard is and how
to protect themselves from it. In addition to having a right
to know about hazards, people exposed should also have a right
to take action to prevent exposure or eliminate the hazard completely.
Despite all his accomplishments,
Tony expressed great dissatisfaction with what the safety and
health movement has achieved. "Workers have to be empowered
to inspect their own workplaces and cite the employer for violations
rather than waiting for a federal inspector who may never arrive.
There are 6.1 million workplaces covered by the Act. With a couple
thousand inspectors, they may be able to visit your workplace
once every 100 years. With worker empowerment, you would have
millions of inspectors at no expense to the taxpayer. All the
feds have to do is empower them."
--
From the October 9, 2002 NYCOSH Update on Safety and Health
http://www.nycosh.org
This page last updated
on October 28, 2001.