[Marxism] Lost in the Dust of 9/11

[Les Schaffer <schaffer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Lost in the Dust of 9/11

From society's margins, janitors were drafted for an epic cleanup around
ground zero. Then 'the cough' racked their lives.

By Ellen Barry, Times Staff Writer
October 14, 2006

NEW YORK — There is no voice left in Manuel Checo's voice. He speaks in
a granular rasp that fades, occasionally, to whispery puffs of air.
Sometimes, for periods as long as two days, he is unable to speak at all.

When that happens, Checo carries a pad of paper with him so he can
scribble down notes if he needs something. But for the most part, he
will simply disappear into his rented room, ignoring his cellphone when
it rings.

Checo, a janitor, spent six months cleaning dust from office buildings
around ground zero after the World Trade Center attack. Five years
later, the lining of his lungs is pocked with scars and densities that
do not belong there — possibly a sign of a disease that can cause lung
tissue to become so stiff that it can no longer carry oxygen, wrote a
radiologist who examined a scan of his lungs last year.

[snip]

The dust around ground zero, we now know, contained caustic, finely
pulverized concrete, trillions of microscopic fibers of glass, and
particles of lead, mercury and arsenic, as well as carcinogens like
asbestos and dioxin. Five years out, the "World Trade Center cough" has
started to look like a persistent — and in some cases disabling —
respiratory condition.

An ever-growing number of New Yorkers is coming forward to describe
symptoms: the first responders who plunged into the tangled wreckage to
find survivors; the volunteers who hauled diesel fuel and doled out
cigarettes; the students at Stuyvesant High School who returned to
classes while acrid fires burned nearby.

Less visible is the army of cleaning workers who were sent to the area
to clean office buildings. Those were the cases that were shocking to
Scottie Hill, a social worker, when the Mount Sinai Medical Center
opened its WTC health clinic in 2002. The cleaners, mostly Polish and
Latino immigrants, were already living close to the edge when the job
began; by the following year, many were in crisis because of lost wages
and poor health.

Three out of four lacked health insurance. Forget workers' compensation
— many of them could not even contact their employers by phone. Hill
frequently saw clients who were facing eviction or had lost their homes.
Some couldn't afford the $4 it cost to ride the subway to the clinic and
back.

A few of the immigrant workers, too sick to support themselves in the
U.S. anymore, have returned to their home countries. But that decision
is fraught, too, because relatives back home — or doctors, for that
matter — may not know what is wrong with them. Jaime Carcamo, a
psychologist who treats 50 Latino workers who cleaned around ground
zero, said some of them, finding that they were unable to work, simply
withdrew from society.

"They just remain like nomads," he said. "Some of these people just fell
into the cracks. People don't know about them, but they're out there still."

[snip]

Tons of material had settled in the buildings. When terrorists crashed
two planes into the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, its two towers
collapsed with such force that dust and debris poured in and upward
through the ventilation systems of the buildings around them. It was up
to landlords to decide who would clear the buildings, and many chose
cheaper labor: men and women who days before had been emptying trash
cans and dusting computers.

The city's Department of Environmental Protection generally oversees the
removal of debris containing asbestos, but that system was informally
abandoned after Sept. 11, according to David Newman, an industrial
hygienist with the New York Committee for Occupational Safety and
Health, a coalition of union leaders and safety activists. Landlords got
no guidance from state or federal agencies, leaving them "free, if you
will, to do whatever they wanted, or to do nothing," Newman said. "It
was kind of a Wild West."

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cleaners14oct14,0,3275974.story?coll=la-home-headlines


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