One year later, 9/11 health concerns linger

The effects of Sept. 11 will remain forever in the minds and hearts of Americans. But for many New Yorkers, the disaster continues to pose daily physical and psychological challenges as well. No one knows this better than the people who live and work in the community near Ground Zero--including members of the Professional Staff Congress/AFT who work at the Borough of Manhattan Community College. Last September, the 17,000-student institution lost a large classroom building--Fiterman Hall--located next to the World Trade Center.

The PSC received many inquiries from members who were worried about their health in the days following the terrorist attacks. A full year later, questions remain about the long-term effects of exposures to toxins in the aftermath of the incident.

The PSC is concerned about elevated lead levels in the air-handling units and the deadly mix of asbestos, dioxin and mold, says Joan Greenbaum, a health and safety officer for the union. PSC has yet to be given an exact date for toxic waste clean-up, Greenbaum adds.

A more visible problem is overcrowded classrooms. When the community college's 17,000 students returned to campus last month, they were crammed into the main campus building, which was designed to hold only 8,000 students. "The air is terrible," says Jane Young, president of the PSC chapter at BMCC. "Many of the [temporary] classrooms don't have windows. Every day, there are escalators that don't work. We have lots of quality-of-life issues."

The administration brought in portable classrooms, but they were located too close to the trucks and barges used during the clean-up of the site; the noise and dust kept students from using them, notes Greenbaum.

Fiterman Hall will be razed and rebuilt, but it may take three to five years before the new building is completed. In the meantime, the BMCC administration is looking for rental space in the area to ease overcrowding.

Last year the PSC, with the cooperation of the college administration, asked the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to examine the extent of the physical and mental health problems of college staff following Sept 11. NIOSH surveyed the faculty and professional, clerical, maintenance and security employees at the college. The agency's report is pending.

In June, NIOSH released results of a similar survey of faculty and staff conducted at Stuyvesant High School, located several blocks from BMCC. A significant number of Stuyvesant staff showed symptoms of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder syndrome as well as other physical symptoms.

The findings are important to the PSC because "BMCC has used Stuyvesant as a barometer," Greenbaum says. The PSC has been following the lead of the high school's parent association and its efforts because the BMCC has all of the same health and safety issues as the school, she adds.

The PSC also has been active in the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and Health (NYCOSH), a coalition of unions, environmental activists and city residents. Earlier this year, NYCOSH experts testified on behalf of its members about the impact of the attacks on public health at hearings held by the City Council, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The successful effort to hold hearings on the community health and safety issues that resulted from the Sept. 11 attacks was a collaboration between labor and city residents, notes Greenbaum. The parties came together because "the residents were not getting anywhere by themselves, and neither was labor," she says.

UC lecturers stage strikes for fall

Frustrated by two years of bad-faith bargaining and capricious actions by the University of California administration, the union that represents nearly 2,000 lecturers in the system began striking back this fall. On Aug. 28, the UC-Berkeley chapter of the University of California Council of the American Federation of Teachers (UC-AFT) held a one-day strike. The CFT estimates that one-third to one-half of the classes on campus did not meet. Other chapters in the nine-campus system plan local actions for the fall.

At Berkeley, the lecturers' action is a measure of the university's widespread labor difficulties. UC-AFT coordinated its strike with a three-day strike conducted by the Coalition of University Employees, which represents 1,900 clerical workers. Sixty nurses affiliated with the California Nurses Association who work at the Berkeley University Health Center also held a sympathy strike. The graduate employees union, the librarians (who make up a separate unit of UC-AFT) and many students supported the striking workers by stepping onto the picket lines and attending rallies.

All the unions are looking for improvements in pay and working conditions--and signs that the university is willing to bargain seriously. Job security is a particular concern for the lecturers; the university is suddenly depriving them of the right, following six years of superior performance, to turn annual contracts into three-year contracts. Also, UC-AFT has been without a contract for two and a half years. It has filed numerous unfair labor practice complaints against the university, as have the other unions.

Jim Stockinger, a lecturer in sociology who is also a shop steward for the clerical union, spoke to AFT On Campus between rallies on Aug. 28. Hundreds of workers, students and supporters were on picket lines, he says. Elected officials, including Berkeley's mayor, a councilman and candidates for statewide office, were on hand to voice their support.

"The arrogance of the university is quite stupefying," says Stockinger, who handles grievances for CUE. "It's actually starting to get under the skin of our elected officials. The state Senate wrote a letter to the university asking for an explanation of [its] labor policies."

A week before the strike, the California Public Employment Relations Board released its decision on an unfair labor practice that UC-AFT filed months ago. The union charged that the university had unilaterally increased the employee cost of healthcare benefits, including co-pays. Such increases are by statute a mandatory subject of bargaining, the union argued. The PERB agreed.

The UC-AFT's fall semester strategy emerged after the union held a secret mail ballot this summer. The ballot showed that 88 percent of the instructors supported taking job actions, including withholding their teaching and other services.

The lecturers teach 45 percent of the classes systemwide, many at the freshman level, says Kevin Roddy, president of the UC-AFT. They do work that is similar to that of permanent tenured faculty--advising students, serving on committees, keeping up with research, writing--but are paid only about half as much.

The UC-AFT has filed an unfair labor practice over the university's withholding of three-year contracts. "This is a critical ULP," says Roddy, who has taught at UC-Davis for 26 years. "It shows the larger dimension of bad faith and disrespect in the way we are treated."

Chicago unions regain bargaining rights

AFT locals in Chicago and other city unions are poised to reclaim many of the bargaining rights stripped by the Illinois Legislature in 1995.

A coalition of unions met with the city throughout the summer and reached a tentative agreement on restoring many protections and giving employees a renewed say in school operations at both the preK-12 and community college levels. The agreement was approved by the Chicago Teachers Union's House of Delegates last month and crafted into language that the state Legislature is expected to pass by year's end.

"The restoration of these rights has been one of the top priorities of the CTU officers," Deborah Lynch, CTU president and an AFT vice president, reported in an Aug. 26 letter to union delegates. "Your officers believe that this agreement not only restores our bargaining rights, but makes us full partners in the decision-making about how to strengthen our schools and improve our professional working conditions."

Enactment of the School Reform Act of 1995 dealt a severe blow to members' rights at both CTU and the Cook County College Teachers Union/AFT and crippled the unions' ability to bargain on a range of issues, including class size, assessment policy, privatization of services and staffing. Restoring those rights--a top legislative priority of AFT state and local affiliates in Illinois--moved forward in the last session. The Illinois Federation of Teachers and other groups helped marshal enough support from both sides of the aisle to pass what amounted to a legislative "place holder" for whatever agreement the city and the coalition of unions could reach.

Negotiations were intense over the summer and resulted in an agreement between the unions, Mayor Richard M. Daley and school system chief executive officer Arne Duncan. It opens up a broad range of issues to collective bargaining and guarantees unions' rights to enforce their contracts through a true arbitration process.

Regaining collective bargaining rights "is an issue we've been pressing in the Illinois Legislature over the past seven years," says Cook County College Teachers Union president Norman Swenson, who represented all the unions at the City Colleges of Chicago during the negotiations. The union got three bills through the Illinois House, but they were blocked in the Senate. What made the difference this time, says Swenson, was the CTU's concerted focus. He credits Lynch and the new leadership at the CTU with delivering on a campaign promise and cinching the agreement before the start of this school year.

In addition to class size language, the agreement reinstates CCCTU's ability to negotiate noneconomic issues such as technology, teaching assignments and academic calendar. It also makes the impact of decisions on layoffs or contracting out a mandatory subject of bargaining, Swenson adds.

For the Chicago schools, the agreement puts school reform back on the table: It includes language that secures a mutual commitment from CTU and the school system to improve schools and increase student achievement. "We will jointly work on issues such as developing and implementing programs, accelerating the quality of teacher training, improving the value of education programs to students and implementing strategies to comply with the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001," Lynch told members.