Washington Window: In praise of public workers

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

By Mark Gruenberg
It is a commonplace attitude among what is called "the chattering class" -- not to mention many politicians, especially Republicans.  They hate public workers, especially if they're unionized. "Incompetent," the politicians and pundits say.   "Overpaid."  "Paper-pushers."  And their favorite insult: "Bureaucrats." And then a disaster hits, like Hurricane Katrina, or the Haitian earthquake, or the successive snowstorms that almost paralyzed the cities of the Northeast. And guess who's keeping things running, stepping in, helping out, saving people, rescuing society itself? Right:  Public workers. 
When Katrina struck, the Fire Fighters, despite crippled communications, led the search-and-rescue operations.  The Fire Fighters and AFSCME went in to tackle the hazards of leaking chemicals and poisonous substances that afflicted the Gulf Coast in general and New Orleans in particular.  When January's earthquake destroyed the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince, several U.S. nurses unions airlifted thousands of their members to Haiti to provide needed medical care.  And the Fire Fighters, again, sent search-and-rescue teams to hunt for survivors and dig people out from under collapsed buildings. And when the blizzards almost -- but not quite -- brought Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York to a halt, look what happened:
    * The Amalgamated Transit Union and the Transport Workers kept the subways and buses running in the cities, even if service was cut off at the height of the blizzard, and curtailed afterwards.  But limited service is a lot better than none at all.
    * AFSCME members manned sanders, plows and salt spreaders, usually round-the-clock.  It was a valiant effort, not always successful given the huge snowfall and high drifts, to keep key roads passable.  But that's a lot better than totally impassable.
    * The nurses, again, were in the hospitals and emergency rooms, ready to treat those who succumbed to the snow.  Unionized ambulance drivers piloted their vehicles through the snow-clogged streets to get patients to the hospitals.
    * When the patients were checked in, SEIU member staffers -- aides, orderlies, cafeteria workers -- joined those unionized nurses in caring for them.
    All this is not to knock the contributions of private sector workers to keep our cities going and our civilization running, come what may.  Examples:
    * IBEW members worked round-the-clock and braved treacherous roads to restore power to hundreds of thousands of households that lost it to the blizzards.  Ditto Communications Workers members and telephone service.
    * United Food and Commercial Workers struggled through snowdrifts and on icy roads, sometimes driving several hours on what normally would be short commutes, to reach their Giant, Safeway, and other grocery stores in Washington, Baltimore, New York and Philadelphia.  Teamsters trucked the food to those stores.  If UFCW hadn't struggled through the snow or Teamsters hadn't braved the roads, you'd have no food.
    * Though the Postal Service missed its first day of delivery in 30 years, at the height of the blizzard on Feb. 6, Letter Carriers and Postal Workers still piloted their vans and trucks through the snow-bound roads, determined to try to pick up the mail, deliver it where they could, and serve patrons at post offices.
    We're sure there are many other union workers who toiled above and beyond the call of duty to keep our lights on, our transportation running, our shelves stocked, our hospitals ready, and more.  And we say to them -- even if we didn't name them here -- a heartfelt "Thank you!"
    But we want to return to our main point: The next time you hear a politician, or a business owner, or an anti-union propagandist, denounce public workers as good for nothing, remember who kept our civilization going, however haltingly, in times of stress.  It wasn't those ideologues or parasites.  It was public workers.union public workers.
- Gruenberg reports for Press Associates, Inc.