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About Northwest labor press. (Portland , Ore.) 1987-current | View Entire Issue (Feb. 1, 2008)
Including Hanford Reservation Free medical screenings for workers at nuclear sites ranted a recommendation for referral,” Grosseen told the North- west Labor Press. For the three key indicators of occupational disease associated with work at Hanford, BCTMed has have found that nearly 38 per- cent of participants with X-rays have lung abnormalities; more than 38 percent of those with breathing tests have decreased lung capacity; 66 percent of those with a hearing test have evidence of work-related noise-induced hearing loss, and 2.7 percent of those with a beryllium test have evidence of sensitization. Ayers encourages all people who worked with nuclear energy to have a medical screening. “It’s a positive, very easy experience,” he said. The free screening consists of two steps: a work history inter- view and a medical exam. In step one, workers provide a work history interview over the phone to determine what exposure to hazardous material they may have had. In step two, if it is determined that there were exposure risks, the worker would make arrangments to receive a free med- ical screening examination at a medical provider near their home to test for illnesses that may have developed. Following the exam, the participant receives a letter indicating any medical findings. If an illness is discovered, BTMed can steer the worker to government-funded benefit programs to treat the ill- ness. Many workers who have undergone the screening program have been eligible to file a claim with the U.S. Department of La- bor under the Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensa- tion Program Act (EEOICPA). EEOICPA offers workers medical coverage for the illness from the date the claim was filed, and a compensation lump-sum payment. In addition, the program will assist participants who want to file claims for work- ers’ compensation for any work-related problem. Workers who have been screened are invited back Bennett Hartman for a re-screening three years later. Grosseen encour- ages workers to re-test. “We are finding significant Morris & Kaplan, llp newly-diagnosed disease in participants who receive Attorneys at Law a re-screening,” she said. TRI-CITIES, Wash. — Union construction workers who spent any time at all working at Hanford Reservation, or at any of the hundreds of nuclear weapons program sites in the U.S., are eligible to receive a free medical screening to see if they have been exposed to life-threatending ailments. The free service is provided through the Building Trades Na- tional Medical Screening Program (BTMed), which started in 1996 in cooperation with the Department of Energy. BTMed serves union construction workers from 23 DOE sites, including Hanford, Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Labora- tory in Scoville, and Amchitka Test Site in Amchitka Island, Alaska. Mark Ayers, president of the Building and Construction Trades Department, AFL-CIO, said BTMed expects to screen 2,400 work- ers this year. Overall, 16,000 workers (out of some 700,000) have been screened — with more than 3,000 of those having worked at Hanford. “During the boom years of the 1970s and ‘80s, contractors and subcontractors at Hanford were calling for workers from all over the country,” said Sherry Gosseen, who adminsters the program at Hanford there through Zenith Administrators. “This program deals with current and former construction workers that have worked at Hanford and other sites.” Gosseen said the BTMed program at Hanford has recom- mended referral for treatment of a medical condition to 2,680 of those who completed the first screening, and to 425 of those who completed re-screening. “In all, we have found 5,716 medical conditions which war- b h m k Oregon’s Full Service Union Law Firm Representing Workers Since 1960 Serious Injury and Death Cases • Construction Injuries • Automobile Accidents • Medical, Dental, and Legal Malpractice • Bicycle and Motorcycle Accidents • Pedestrian Accidents • Premises Liability (injuries on premises) • Workers’ Compensation Injuries • Social Security Claims We Work Hard for Hard-Working People! 111 SW Fifth Avenue, Suite 1650 Portland, Oregon 97204 (503) 227-4600 www.bennetthartman.com Our Legal Staff are Proud Members of UFCW Local 555 PAGE 2 You may be eligible to participate in the BCTMed program if — You performed construction work (for either the prime con- tractor or subcontractors) at any time in the past at any of the fol- lowing DOE sites: • Hanford Reservation, Richland, Washington • Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory (INEEL), Scoville, Idaho • Amchitka Test Site, Amchitka Island, Alaska • Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Colorado • Battelle Laboratories-King Avenue, Columbus, Ohio • Battelle Laboratories-West Jefferson, Columbus, Ohio • Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New York • Brush-Luckey, Luckey, Ohio • Fernald Closure Project, Fernald, Ohio • Kansas City Plant, Kansas City, Missouri • Mallindkrodt Chemical Co, St. Louis, Missouri • Mound Plant, Miamisburg, Ohio • Oak Ridge, Knoxville, Tennessee • Pinellas, Largo, Florida • Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Paducah, Kentucky • Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, Piketon, Ohio • Savannah River Site, Aiken, South Carolina • Weldon Spring Plant, Weldon Spring, Missouri — And you think you may have been exposed to any health hazards, including radiation, beryllium, asbestos, silica, mercury, cadmium, nickel, lead or other heavy metals, solvents or de- greasers, or any other fumes, vapors or dusts, or noise. — Or you or your doctor think you have had serious health problems as a result of your Department of Engergy work, includ- ing anyone who has or has had cancer, serious lung disease or any other serious illness that you think could be caused by toxic expo- sures. If you worked at Hanford, call Sherry Gosseen at the Hanford Outreach Office at 1-509-542-9347. If you worked elsewhere, call BCTMed at 1-800-866-9663 or go online for more information at www.btmed.org. Unitus Credit Union busts CWA Communications Workers of Amer- ica (CWA) Local 7901 — the union that represents workers at Qwest and AT&T — is asking unions and their members not to do business with Uni- tus Community Credit Union. For more than 30 years, the credit union’s employees were members of CWA. Unitus — formerly known as Oregon Telco Community Credit Union — started as the credit union for telephone company employees. But in 2002 it changed its charter to open up membership to any resident of six Portland-metro-area counties. And in 2004 the credit union changed its name to Unitus. It grew to 65,000 members and $700 million in deposits. Unitus’ final union contract expired Nov. 1, 2006. In over a year of negoti- ations, management refused to budge from its demands for a pay scale based on “market” wages and “merit” bonuses. In the end, said Local 7901 Presi- dent Madelyn Elder, Unitus managers campaigned intensively for Unitus workers to vote out the union. Man- agers held anti-union meetings, dis- tributed anti-union literature, and mailed employees a certified letter telling them how to quit the union. Union staff were only able to talk with NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS workers after-hours, and by visiting workers at home. Unitus management told workers they could call the police if union representatives came to their homes, Elder said. “Management put out the word that, ‘All this conflict will go away if you get rid of the union,’ ” Elder said. “We kept telling them, ‘Yeah, but so will your contract. You’ll be at-will employees.’ ” CWA filed several unfair labor practice charges against Unitus, but none were found to have merit by the National Labor Relations Board. On Dec. 17, in an NLRB-con- ducted decertification election, the vote was 31 to 31. Because federal law requires that a union demonstrate ma- jority support, a tie in a union election means a loss for the union. “It was a real heartbreaker,” Elder said. Now that Unitus is nonunion, CWA Local 7901 plans to withdraw deposits of about $200,000 from the bank, and take its business to a credit union where workers are union-represented. United Advantage Northwest Fed- eral Credit Union has agreed to open up membership to CWA. UANW is the credit union for members of Plumbers and Fitters Local 290 and several printers unions, plus employ- ees of about 60 companies. Workers there are represented by Office and Professional Employees Local 11, which also represents workers at IBEW and United Workers Federal Credit Union; UFCW Northwest Fed- eral Credit Union; and Pacific NW Ironworkers Federal Credit Union. Elder thinks several hundred CWA members also have accounts at Uni- tus. Though withdrawing funds, CWA will keep its Unitus account open so that it can attend the credit union’s March 16 annual meeting. The Oregon AFL-CIO has deposits of about $425,000, which it placed at Unitus specifically because workers there were union-represented. Oregon AFL-CIO President Tom Chamber- lain said the federation would with- draw the deposits whenever CWA re- quests it. CWA’s boycott also has the back- ing of the Northwest Oregon Labor Council, AFL-CIO, which voted to place Unitus on its “Unfair/Do Not Patronize List.” Under federal labor law, CWA can request another election in a year’s time if at least a third of the workers still want to be union. FEBRUARY 1, 2008
