By Bob Hennelly

On this episode of the Stuck Nation Labor Radio Hour, we talk with UFA President Ansbro about the last minute collapse of a bi-partisan bill to fully fund the 9/11 WTC Health Program, as well as the dangerous spike in FDNY EMS response times where shockingly only one-in-five heart attack victims in New York City survives.  

In the second half of the show, we hear from  Deshunta Meredith, president of DC 37 Local 2054 about the plight of thousands of Union represented CUNY workers making below the New York State minimum wage. Evidently, it’s legal. According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a person would need twice that to survive in New York City.

Ansbro was in Washington D.C. earlier this month for the last minute torpedoing by Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump of a bi-partisan budget deal that would have prevented a federal government shutdown. The gyrations sank another bi-partisan agreement that would have permanently funded the 9/11 WTC Health Program. Without the additional money, the program will have to start rationing care and not take on new participants even as the need grows more acute. 

More people have perished from 9/11 WTC related diseases than died on the day of the attack. Tens of thousands of first responders and survivors have long term chronic health issues due to that exposure.

In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, U.S. EPA  Administrator Christie Todd Whitman said the air was “safe to breathe.” A subsequent EPA Inspector General report concluded that the agency had no scientific basis to back up that claim and that the Bush White House had intervened to add reassuring statements and delete cautionary ones. The IG found that the EPA had concealed that the samples of asbestos they had taken showed levels that were double and triple the agency’s danger limit. Opening Wall Street back up was the top priority.  

Congress did ultimately pass a government spending bill that President Joe Biden signed, but the 9/11 WTC Health Program  funding bill fell through. First responders unions plan on continuing the fight for full funding, not just for themselves, but for the hundreds of thousands of civilian survivor—thousands of whom were children at the time, who were sent back into schools in what was a hot zone.

Listen to the entire show below:

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