Workers Remember 9/11 Victims, First Responders

by James Parks, Sep 11, 2009

Read the AFL-CIO Executive Council statement honoring America’s 911 Heroes here.

Working people across the country today are participating in community service and remembrance events to honor those who lost their lives in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and the first responders who worked tirelessly to rescue the survivors.

These events, which cap a “summer of service” called for by President Obama, come just two days before the AFL-CIO begins its 26th constitutional convention in Pittsburgh, just 80 miles from Shanksville, where United Airlines flight 93 went down eight years ago.

From Anchorage, Alaska, to Peoria, Ill., to Nashville, Tenn., working people are organizing food drives, blood drives and other service events. AFL-CIO central labor councils have conducted more than 300 community-based service projects across the country throughout the summer. Local labor groups from across the country also have conducted activities to help the growing number of unemployed Americans in San Francisco, Dallas and dozens of other communities.

Says AFL-CIO President John Sweeney:

Six hundred union members were among those killed on September 11. There isn’t a better way to honor their lives and the lives lost by so many others than by continuing to support our communities and strengthening the neighborhoods they called home.

In Las Vegas, the AFL-CIO Community Services agency of the Nevada State AFL-CIO is offering assistance to the city’s disadvantaged elderly seeking low-cost prescription drugs. In another example, nearly 200 volunteers from AFT and the Philadelphia Council of the AFL-CIO gathered enough school supplies to fill an entire school bus. The donated supplies were given to children living in Philadelphia homeless shelters.

Also, today at Ground Zero, the New York State AFL-CIO and New YorK City Central Labor Council joined together to press for immediate passage of the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act (HR. 847/S.1334), which would establish a medical monitoring and treatment program for the Sept. 11 first responders and the community around the site of the attacks.

A recent study found nearly one-quarter of a sample of firefighters and other first responders and construction workers exposed to the toxic mix of chemicals and debris at Ground Zero during Sept. 11 rescue and recovery operations continue to suffer from persistent lung problems.

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