Labor Union Blog

Medical and health and safety experts today urged Congress to approve new legislation to establish a permanent monitoring, research and health care program for the responders and people who lived and worked near Ground Zero who were exposed to the same mix of pulverized glass and concrete, asbestos, lead and burning jet fuel.

Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO health and safety director, told the House Subcommittee on Health:

The exposures were made much worse by EPA’s pronouncements that the environment was safe and OSHA’s failure to enforce workplace safety and health requirements during the entire 10-month period of rescue, recovery and clean-up operations at the WTC site.