Doing Right by Sick 9/11 Workers

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/27/opinion/doing-right-by-sick-9-11-workers.html

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Government officials can face difficult decisions. Here’s one that isn’t: choosing to give unlimited paid sick leave to public workers made ill by their service after the Sept. 11 attacks.

Yet thousands of state and local government employees in New York who were exposed to the toxic dust from the attacks are not getting that benefit, even after the state passed a law last year meant to guarantee it to many of them.

Some agencies are just not following the law, according to public workers who applied for the benefit and were turned away. As first reported by The Chief-Leader, a newspaper that covers labor relations in New York, a court officer, Angela Shirlaw, for example, told state senators at a hearing this month that her employer, the Office of Court Administration, a state agency that oversees court employees, had rejected her claim even though she had been deployed to the site to help direct pedestrians to safety. Another court officer told The New York Times that the agency had not responded to his claim for months.

Lucian Chalfen, a spokesman for the agency, said legitimate claims would be approved, but that the law's stipulation that individuals qualify if they “currently work for a municipality, public authority or state employer outside of New York City” was “very ambiguous and confusing.” That language seems perfectly straightforward.

What’s more, the state law excluded New York City workers, and Mayor Bill de Blasio’s administration has opposed legislation to extend the benefit to them, saying it plans to negotiate with unions over the issue by the end of the year.

But why should the city, where thousands of workers faced the perils of ground zero, treat as a bargaining chip a right granted to other government employees?

Police officers, firefighters and sanitation workers have long held such benefits. But some 4,000 other city employees, like emergency medical workers, served in Lower Manhattan in the days, weeks and months after the attacks. Hundreds of them have had to miss work without compensation because of illnesses linked directly to their service.

De Blasio administration officials said the city was willing to pay for the benefit but needed to work out its implementation, clarifying details like how medical claims will be reviewed and by whom. But union leaders say city negotiators have expressed concerns largely about cost.

“These guys are dying,” Vincent Variale, president of District Council 37’s Uniformed E.M.S. Officers Union Local 3621, said of emergency medical technicians and paramedics who served at the World Trade Center. He said some officers are undergoing chemotherapy in the morning and returning to work in the afternoon, unable to take any more sick time without losing pay or being forced to leave the job and risking the loss of medical benefits.

Jennifer Dougherty, a veteran E.M.T., was charged with sifting through the toxic debris in the months after the attacks to search for body parts. Ms. Dougherty said she was forced to retire in June after a diagnosis of ovarian cancer determined to be related to her service. She didn’t have enough paid sick leave. “If I were a firefighter or a cop, I would have had the choice to keep working,” she said.

As Mr. Variale said, his members “responded to the worst disaster in the city’s history, in the country’s history, and the city is acting like these people are asking for a handout.”

He’s right. The city needs to begin offering unlimited paid sick leave to workers without delay, making the benefit retroactive so workers can recoup any sick time they may have already used for 9/11-related illnesses. It’s the responsibility of Gov. Andrew Cuomo to ensure state and local agencies across New York understand the paid sick leave law and follow it fully, in spirit and in letter.

The thousands of people battling illnesses related to the Sept. 11 attacks should be treated with respect. You can call that good government, or simply the right thing to do.

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