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News :: Miscellaneous |
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US Unions Respond to Attacks |
Current rating: 0 |
by AFL-CIO
(No verified email address) |
12 Sep 2001
Modified: 02:04:00 PM |
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Summary of union responses to the attacks on New York and Washington, D.C. |
Terror Strikes America's Working Families
The terrorist attacks Sept. 11 took a massive toll on America's working families. Among the deaths resulting from the airliner crashes into New York's World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., were unprecedented losses of emergency services workers.
"At this point, we cannot calculate the enormous loss of life," said Fire Fighters General President Harold A. Schaitberger, noting that the devastating day of terror will "undoubtedly be the worst day for line-of-duty deaths in the 83-year history of the IAFF."
New York fire officials say 300 firefighters and 85 city police officers who rushed to the World Trade Center to aid workers there may have died when the complex's twin towers collapsed. Additional emergency workers were feared dead at the Pentagon.
"We mourn for all those killed in these acts of cowardice, including the brave men and women firefighters, police, emergency personnel, pilots and flight attendants who gave their lives," said AFL-CIO President John Sweeney.
The four hijacked airliners used in Tuesday's terrorist attacks carried a total of 233 passengers, 25 flight attendants and eight pilots. Captain Duane Woerth, Air Line Pilots Association president, said his union has "committed all of the resources of the association's security, air safety and accident investigation personnel to assist in this unimaginable tragedy." A Flight Attendants statement said that union stood "ready to assist authorities and families of victims in any and every way possible."
"Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims of yesterday's terrorist attacks, and to the hundreds of families that have lost loved ones," Sweeney said. "And with deep gratitude and admiration we thank the thousands of emergency services and medical workers fighting to rescue and save victims at the World Trade Center complex and the Pentagon."
Check back for more information in the coming hours and days.
For additional information see the following sites:
www.iaff.org (Internal Assn. of Firefighters)
www.alpa.org (Air Lines Pilots Association)
www.afanet.org (Association of Flight Attendants) |
See also:
www.aflcio.org
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Another Union Family Man for Peace |
by Another Union Family Man for Peace
(No verified email address) |
Current rating: 0
12 Sep 2001
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My friend is pregnant. She and I have a baby on the way, due February 2002. I would like a peaceful world for her or him to live in. I hope earnestly that rank and file workers around the U. S. will resist the drumbeat for war which resounds from every available politician, pundit, and media outlet.
Let us, as workers, realize that every call for war in the industrial age has meant devastation and tragedy for working families worldwide, and big profits for the few who run the Work Machine, which is synonymous with the War Machine.
A call for PEACE NOW is a call for the true best interest of workers everywhere.
Paul Kotheimer
Member, AFSCME 3700
Urbana-Champaign, Illinois |
