Red Cross Workers Fight for Safe Blood, Fair Contract
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At the American Red Cross headquarters in Farmington, Conn., the 225 AFSCME Local 3145 members—front-line blood services workers who make sure the blood supply is safe and sound—have been working without a contract since April.
Around the country, several bargaining units are in the same situation. They say the Red Cross is seeking to replace nurses with unlicensed supervisors, force employees to work unrealistic schedules, make workers bear the increased costs of an inferior health care plan and turn blood collection into an assembly line process.
AFSCME Local 3145 is part of a national coalition of unionized Red Cross workers who have united to improve working conditions, along with donor and blood safety supply at the Red Cross.
In Farmington, the nurses, laboratory technicians, phlebotomists, drivers and other workers are engaged in a campaign raising public awareness about how Red Cross puts profits ahead of safety. Says Local 3145 President Debra Lenentine:
The Red Cross is all about big money and bigger profits at the expense of donors and workers.
Now Labeled a Pandemic, Swine Flu Poses Threat to Health Care Workers
The H1N1 (swine flu) virus is now the first global flu pandemic in 41 years. The World Health Organization (WHO) yesterday declared the virus a Phase-6 pandemic, its highest level of warning.
The declaration means the virus has circled the globe and poses a threat to spread more rapidly among populations. So far, there have been 27,737 cases of swine flu and 141 deaths in 74 countries. In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says there have been 13,000 cases of the flu and at least 27 deaths.
WHO classifies the reported cases as mild to moderate. But two other factors are causes for concern. About half of those who have died from the H1N1 virus were young and healthy people not normally susceptible to flu. Second, the virus continues to spread in the warm summer months in the Northern Hemisphere, a time when flu viruses normally disappear.
