By MOLLY CHARBONEAU

Workplace environmental issues have changed radically since the World Trade Center disaster, and DC 37’s approach to protecting members’ safety and health is becoming more aggressive. Members have confronted everything from toxic contaminants and foul air at Ground Zero to worries about anthrax. In response, DC 37 is setting up union-to-union networks, an internal response system and an action committee to address these risks and prepare for potential new ones.

“We’re going to turn up the heat and bring these issues to public attention,” said DC 37 Deputy Director Zachary Ramsey. At the Nov. 14 DC 37 Executive Board meeting, local presidents spoke out strongly about the air that is sickening members in lower Manhattan and voted to set up an action committee to mobilize around the issue. Here are highlights of DC 37’s other recent safety activities.

Citywide labor task force
DC 37 asked the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH) to convene a multi-union meeting with safety and health experts. “We expect this group to strategize about protecting members,” said DC 37 Field Services Director Barbara Ingram-Edmonds.

Over 50 unions and organizations, including many DC 37 locals, attended the Oct. 25 session, which was chaired by Lee Clarke, head of DC 37’s Safety and Health Dept. Participants shared detailed information about the hazards their members face and formed two working groups — an Anthrax Committee and a World Trade Center Committee — to develop protective procedures.

DC 37 disaster team
As the anthrax scare gripped the city, DC 37’s Field Services Dept. pulled together a multi-departmental DC 37 Disaster Relief Working Group to coordinate the union’s safety and health response. Local presidents were briefed on the group’s progress at a Nov. 7 meeting.

Two key thrusts top their agenda:

• Getting information into members’ hands about how to protect themselves from anthrax.
  
• Pressing city agencies to provide training, procedures and equipment to safeguard DC 37 members whose jobs put them at risk of infection.
  

After meeting with the union, the city and the Health and Hospitals Corp. issued guidelines for handling mail based on recommendations from the federal Centers for Disease Control.

The working group is also strategizing on how to get city agencies to improve building evacuation plans and deal with air quality problems that are causing respiratory difficulties near Ground Zero. Meanwhile, DC 37 safety and health staff continue to inspect city buildings that are reopening in lower Manhattan and respond to members’ safety queries.

Also in the works is a DC 37 World Trade Center Incident Report Form to help members document possible exposures to contaminants near Ground Zero.

Meetings and legal strategies
Municipal Hospital Workers Local 420 and other DC 37 locals with members at city hospitals and clinics, held safety and health meetings with the HHC on Nov. 5. Representatives of DC 37 Locals 375, 420, 436, 983 and 1549 pressed HHC Senior VP Frank J. Cirillo on members’ concerns. They focused on procedures and protection when opening mail, cleaning, handling lab samples and transporting materials, disaster plans in the event an HHC facility must be evacuated, and security issues.

The union is pushing for similar safety and health meetings with other municipal agencies and authorities.

DC 37 is also taking legal action in cases where an agency has been reluctant to meet with the union about members’ safety and health. The union filed an improper practice petition against the Administration for Children’s Services after the agency violated the contract by preventing union leaders from meeting with members about poor air quality and inspecting their offices near Ground Zero.