Union Members Offer Helping Hands

In addition to the teams of union emergency services and medical workers conducting rescue and aid missions in New York and suburban Washington, D.C., union volunteers are contributing their skills, funds and even blood.

Building Trades Joins Front Lines

In New York City, Business Representative Bob Walsh of Iron Workers Local 40 says union members began calling the local Tuesday morning shortly after the news of the attack to ask how to help. By early afternoon, when the National Guard called on the union, hundreds of workers from several city construction unions were available to assist.

Working with cranes, bulldozers, end loaders and by hand, union construction workers began Tuesday evening and throughout the night removing the massive debris from the streets in lower Manhattan but had not gained access to the buildings' wreckage as of early Wednesday afternoon.

Walsh says many of the workers returning from the site were shaken and described "a very gruesome scene."

At the request of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Iron Workers from their Washington, D.C., headquarters have purchased essential recovery equipment needed to cut through the millions of tons of rubble.

The Iron Workers union has set up three teams of recovery volunteers, which will be rotated into lower Manhattan. These volunteers of highly skilled construction workers are drawn from New York, all of New England, the mid-Atlantic, Virginia, Ohio, Washington, D.C., and West Virginia. More than 1,000 Iron Workers have volunteered.

Volunteers from all 16 New York City Laborers local unions are helping in the recovery operation, including Local 78, which specializes in asbestos handling. The World Trade Center buildings contained a huge amount of the material, according to reports.

Hundreds of members of Operating Engineers locals 14 and 15 are operating heavy equipment in the rescue operations.

The Building and Construction Trades Council (BCTC) in New York City "is operating around the clock. We have probably 1,000 people who are down there now assisting the rescue, and we'll be working throughout the entire cleanup," says BCTC President Edward Malloy.

Health Care Workers Respond

Thousands of health care workers responded in the hours and days following the attack. SEIU Local 1199NY, the SEIU Committee of Interns and Residents and the SEIU Doctors' Alliance are providing around-the-clock emergency medical service.

The New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA), part of the United American Nurses, have been caring for World Trade Center survivors in Manhattan, Brooklyn and New Jersey hospitals. An early call for volunteers on the NYSNA website drew such a tremendous response it had to be withdrawn because the New York State Department of Health couldn't handle the volume.

Helping People Cope

The New York State Psychological Association (NYSPA), an AFT affiliate, has dispatched disaster response teams to help victims, workers and their families deal with the emotional reaction to the events. The teams are working near the site, at the morgues and other locations.

Along with the United Federation of Teachers, also an AFT affiliate, the NYSPA is developing a package of material for school children to help them comprehend the tragedy and their feelings about it. The material also will stress the importance of not blaming an ethnic group for the actions of individual terrorists.

A Time for Tolerance

Amid reports of unprovoked attacks on Arab Americans, Muslim Americans and South Asian Americans, AFL-CIO President John Sweeney issued a call for tolerance.

We must do everything we can to prevent acts of prejudice against our fellow Americans based on racial, ethnic or religious stereotypes.This attack was a terrorist attack, not an attack by any religious or ethnic group. We are all angry; let our anger be directed at the real enemy the terrorists, he said. The U.S. Department of Justice announced that attacks on Arab Americans would be prosecuted as hate crimes. Several such attacks already are being investigated by the FBI.

Maritime Unions

Marine Engineers, Seafarers and the International Organization of Masters, Mates & Pilots are aboard the U.S. Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort, which is on its way to the scene in New York. 

Other members of these unions have worked on the New York waterways ferries to evacuate people from south Manhattan. Some Seafarers have assisted in the grim task of carrying bodies from the scene to a temporary morgue in New Jersey.

Working with the Red Cross

AFL-CIO Community Service-Red Cross liasons are on the ground in New York assisting in coordination efforts between the Red Cross and union disaster relief efforts.

At the request of the Red Cross, AFL-CIO staff helped locate space for a Compassion Care Center to provide counseling to families of the victims.

The Red Cross called the Teamsters to request a truck and drivers to pick up communications equipment at a warehouse in Memphis, Tenn., and drive it to New York. IBT members, employees of UPS, responded to the call and the equipment has been delivered.

Teamsters and Postal Workers Make the Delivery

In Detroit, more than a dozen tractor-trailers loaded with relief supplies were dispatched to New York City. IBT members and Postal Workers loaded the respirators and other medical supplies, rescue tools and work clothes, including gloves, shoes and water supplies for rescue workers. IBT members drove the trucks. The donations were made by Detroit-area businesses.

Hitting the Streets in Washington, D.C.

In Washington, D.C., and Northern Virginia, hundreds of union members from dozens of different unions went door to door Sept. 15 and 16 to canvass for volunteers and contributions to support relief efforts for the Pentagon and World Trade Center attacks.

The effort was coordinated by the Metropolitan Washington Council, their emergency fund and the local District of Columbia labor community services agency.

Thousands of Washington, D.C.-area union members work at the Pentagon.

Joint Efforts Continue

Employees of Washington, D.C.-area unions and other concerned citizens joined AFL-CIO headquarters staff for a memorial service at noon on Sept. 13, featuring faith leaders from several religious traditions.

Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers locals 3 and 50 were contacted by New York emergency shelters and asked if they could obtain paper masks and gloves used by BCTMG workers in bakeries to donate to volunteers and workers at the World Trade Center rescue effort. The locals contacted union-contracted bakeries in the region and obtained 20,000 masks. They then helped distribute the face masks to rescue workers in various points in Manhattan.

The New York State AFL-CIO, Fire Fighters, the Westchester/Putnam Counties AFL-CIO Central Labor Body and United Food and Commercial Workers have teamed up to provide truckloads of food from union supermarkets to firefighters participating in the World Trade Center rescue. The New York City Central Labor Council is organizing a clothing drive for emergency service workers and is asking that fresh clothing be taken to Chelsea Piers.

Michigan members of the Painters and Allied Trades delivered more than 5,000 five-gallon buckets to New York that are being used in the dig operation at the World Trade Center site.

Members of Machinists Local 1269 in Genoa, Ill., were quick to respond to the World Trade Center disaster. These skilled workers build communications components that are essential to search and rescue efforts. Two IAM members from Local 1269 delivered a Mobile Emergency Restoriation Trailer, or MERT, to restore communications at the rescue effort.

Though additional assistance like this is not needed at this time, the Chicago Tribune reported on 39 Chicago-area firefighters who jumped in cars and drove to New York to assist.

Union members also are responding to calls for contributions to relief funds set up for workers at both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and are turning out at Red Cross offices and hospitals to donate blood. To find out where to donate blood, call the Red Cross at 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.

Updated 9/20/2001 9:10 A.M. ET