In the Face of Danger

By Gerald McEntee

With the Year 2000 closing in on us, the media has started its full-scale barrage of retrospectives and historical commemorations of this century’s most significant events.

Unfortunately, when it comes to remembering some of this century’s worst domestic tragedies, reporters need not look that far back in our past.

Four years have passed now since the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., was destroyed by a bomb, killing 165 people — most of them public employees.

Two months have passed since our nation reacted with horror upon learning that two high school seniors walked through the halls of their school, Columbine High in Littleton, Colo., killing 12 students and one teacher before taking their own lives.

Such tragedies come at the hands of man; others are beyond the control of man.

A few weeks ago, tornadoes slashed through Oklahoma and Kansas, killing 43 people and leaving in their wake untold property damage, including damage to homes of several AFSCME members.

The reality of each of these situations, whether deed of human violence or destructive act of nature, has a direct impact on the AFSCME family.

Workplace tragedies. I am sure that the last thing that crossed the minds of the people who worked in the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995 was that they might lose their life to a bomb. I am sure the same is true about Dave Sanders, a teacher at Columbine High School, who was killed by the teenage terrorists.

In both cases, workers probably assumed that they were working in a safe environment. After all, they weren’t patrolling high crime areas or fighting raging fires. But the reality is that danger now lurks in areas that were once considered perfectly safe.

No one, especially public servants, can assume that their workplace is immune from violence or tragedy.

According to the Department of Justice, over 2 million incidents of workplace violence occur every year. Homicide is the leading cause of death of women in the workplace, and the second leading cause of death in the workplace overall. These statistics also reveal that government and public service workers are at higher risk for violence than workers in the private sector. Law enforcement officers, school employees and medical and mental health workers — many of whom are AFSCME members — are the most frequent victims of violence.

In light of these alarming statistics, AFSCME is now pushing employers to provide training for employees to help them recognize the warning signs of potential workplace violence.

Recognizing those signs and getting a co-worker, client or student the help they need might be the difference between life and death.

In the wake of disaster. Often it is the job of AFSCME members to respond in times of emergency or disaster. You are expected to — and do — perform at your best when those you are helping are at their worst.

Whether it is in hospital emergency rooms, on debris-strewn streets, in emergency dispatch centers or in any other stressful environment, AFSCME members serve those who depend on them with professionalism and pride.

And often you do it without regard to your own needs.

That’s what the members of Local 2406 (Oklahoma City Municipal Workers) did in response to the recent tornadoes. Despite the fact that some workers had themselves sustained damage on the homefront, they answered the call and worked right alongside their AFSCME sisters and brothers to do the job they have dedicated their lives to — serving the public.

Credit to those who deserve it: you. Despite the dedication and heroism that our members routinely display, public servants are often portrayed in a negative light by the media. A recent study of how government workers are depicted in the media found that throughout the history of prime time television, more often than not, public servants have been caricatured as lazy and shiftless.

Fortunately, the general public isn’t buying what the networks have been feeding them. In a recent poll, 70 percent of Americans said they trust or positively view civil servants and public employees. In the same poll, the media and journalists came in next to last, with 43 percent.

That proves that the American people know what I have known for years — you do some of the most dangerous, often unpleasant, but always necessary work that the citizens of this country depend on.

You are the courageous men and women who do the sometimes mundane and always underappreciated work, often at your own peril.

You are the brave men and women whose quiet dedication to public service keeps this country going.

So to each and every one of our 1.3 million members, I would pass on a sentiment that is well-deserved but so rarely spoken: "Thank you for doing what you do.”