Workers & Bird Flu: Who's Making Plans?

WASHINGTON, D.C.

Health care workers, emergency responders and others represented by AFSCME are expressing concern about the growing threat of a bird/avian flu pandemic. Their fear: Worker protections might be ignored or given low priority in making preparations for the onslaught and then putting them into effect.

Unlike the familiar seasonal flu, there is no vaccine against the bird flu virus, which has devastated bird populations in a number of countries. As of May 23, this particular type of influenza virus — known as H5N1 — had infected 218 individuals worldwide and led to 124 deaths. The victims probably came in contact with infected chickens, turkeys, ducks or migrating fowl.

An added concern stems from the fact that viruses can change or mutate over time, which could result in a new type or strain of bird-flu virus transmittable among human beings. That could change an epidemic into a pandemic or global outbreak, with the infection spreading rapidly, widely and possibly over a long period of time.

Given the essential role of AFSCME members in health care, emergency services and public safety jobs, they would be expected to continue working, no matter how severe the situation. Other members, employed in schools, government buildings, etc., could face closure of their workplaces.

Says William Sheard, RN/LPN, a public health nurse in Philadelphia, about the anti-bird flu efforts thus far: "A lot more needs to be done to prepare for a pandemic. It needs to start at the federal level and go all the way down the line so that we don't have a repeat of the Katrina disaster. As it is now, we don't know what we're being exposed to." Sheard, a member of Local 2187 (Council 47), knows about communicable diseases: The clinic in which he works deals with HIV and tuberculosis.

AFSCME's own experts, who have analyzed the Bush administration's measures to counter bird flu, consider them woefully inadequate in terms of recommending — let alone requiring — actions that will protect health care workers and emergency responders. As an example, the experts cite the administration's call for workers to use surgical masks — even though such masks are neither designed for, nor capable of preventing, an infection from bird flu.

Last December, AFSCME, together with the AFL-CIO and four other affiliated unions, petitioned OSHA to establish an emergency temporary standard to protect essential personnel against airborne exposure to avian flu. There is still no standard.