{"id":2754,"date":"2011-09-09T14:43:55","date_gmt":"2011-09-09T14:43:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/we_must_remember_invisible_workers_of_9_11\/"},"modified":"2020-07-07T10:58:47","modified_gmt":"2020-07-07T10:58:47","slug":"we_must_remember_invisible_workers_of_9_11","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/we_must_remember_invisible_workers_of_9_11\/","title":{"rendered":"We must remember\u2026\u2018Invisible\u2019 workers of 9\/11 &#8211; National Consumers League"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!-- content_before_flip_start --><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/savvyconsumer.files.wordpress.com\/2011\/09\/92_michell1.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-2075\" title=\"92_michell\" src=\"92_michell1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"92\" height=\"92\"><\/a>By Michell K. McIntyre, Project Director, NCL&#8217;s Special Project on Wage Theft<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>In a time when the union rights of public employees are under constant attack, when school teachers have to fight for their healthcare benefits and public works jobs are being slashed, we need to remember the time, sacrifice and importance of work these employees do. On the tenth anniversary of 9\/11, we remember and honor the ones we lost, the ones who survived and the ones fighting to bring those responsible to justice. We also need to remember those \u2018invisible\u2019 workers who answered the call and did what they could on that awful day and the days following.<\/p>\n<p>Greg Sargent, of the <em>Washington Post<\/em>\u2019s Plum Line, wrote, \u201cDozens upon dozens of workers responded to the disaster with real grit and heroism, undertaking the grueling task of cleaning up the mess, digging through the rubble for the injured and the dead, sometimes searching for their own colleagues and friends, for days and days on end, under unspeakably stressful and wrenching conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, has created a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.afscme.org\/we-remember\">video<\/a> that highlights the work public employees did on that day at Ground Zero. It captures something fundamental about 9\/11 that\u2019s been mostly forgotten:<\/p>\n<p>[youtube=https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=FDVzSP1rQ0Q&amp;feature=player_embedded]<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe were digging by hand,\u201d recalls Patrick Bahnken, an emergency medical technician with the D.C. 37 Local 2507. \u201cYou\u2019re talking 200 plus story buildings, and we\u2019re digging it out by hand. And I knew that a large number of people that I\u2019d be carrying out or looking for or trying to help, were people that I knew. And that made it very difficult. But again, you\u2019re committed to going for those who would have come for you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey wanted to do their job,\u201d recalls Halloveen Brightly, a police communications specialist with the D.C. 37 Local 1549. \u201cI mean, really wanted to go there and help those people. And you can hear it. I think we worked together really well that day. I hope that whatever they needed from me at that last time, I gave it to them. That\u2019s all.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>According to AFSCME, some 343 firefighters and 60 police officers died as a result of 9\/11 and many thousands more remain sick from respiratory ailments attributed to the disaster.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s time to stop the attacks on public employees. It\u2019s time to start remembering and honoring the fundamental work these public employees do everyday.<!-- content_before_flip_end --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Michell K. McIntyre, Project Director, NCL&#8217;s Special Project on Wage Theft In a time when the union rights of public employees are under constant attack, when school teachers have [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2754"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10949,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2754\/revisions\/10949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2754"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2754"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nclnet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2754"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}