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The terrorist attacks Sept. 11 took a massive toll on America's working families. Among the deaths resulting from the airliner crashes into New York's World Trade Center buildings and the Pentagon
outside Washington, D.C., were unprecedented losses of emergency services workers. The fate of hundreds of other workers remains unknown."At this point, we cannot calculate the enormous loss of life,"
said Fire Fighters General President Harold A. Schaitberger, noting that the devastating day of terror will "undoubtedly be the worst day for line-of-duty deaths in the 83-year history of the IAFF."New
York fire officials say 300 firefighters and 85 city police officers who rushed to the World Trade Center to aid workers there may have died when the complex's twin towers collapsed. Additional emergency
workers were feared dead at the Pentagon."
We mourn for all those killed in these acts of cowardice, including the brave men and women firefighters, police, emergency personnel, pilots and flight attendants who gave their lives," said AFL-CIO
President John Sweeney.The four hijacked airliners used in Tuesday's terrorist attacks carried a total of 233 passengers, 25 flight attendants and eight pilots. Captain Duane Woerth, Air Line Pilots
Association president, said his union has "committed all of the resources of the association's security, air safety and accident investigation personnel to assist in this unimaginable tragedy." A
Flight Attendants statement said that union stood "ready to assist authorities and families of victims in any and every way possible."A spokesman for SEIU Local 32BJ, which represents about 800
building maintenance workers at the World Trade Center, said some 350 local members were on duty at the time of the attack. The workers—porters, cleaners, elevator operators and maintenance
workers—were spread throughout all the floors of the towers. It is not known how many were able to escape.
The other 450 Local 32BJ members work evening and night shifts and escaped the attack.
Union brothers and sisters are waiting for reports about other workers at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 100 President Bill Grandfield said some 270
members worked at the Windows on the World restaurant on floors 106 and 107 of World Trade Center Building 1. The local does not know how many were on duty Tuesday morning. Another 30 Local 100 members staffed
the cafeteria in the World Trade Center Building 7—the third, smaller building there to collapse. All were successfully evacuated, Grandfield said, but some sustained injuries while on the street as the
building collapsed.About 235 members of three AFGE locals worked in the World Trade Center complex for the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Federal
Trade Commission. Members of two additional AFGE locals worked in the Pentagon as Army employees and staff in the office of the Secretary of Defense and as Air Force employees. AFGE has no information about
where these workers were during the attacks or their conditions. About 25 Electrical Workers, five Painters members and several Laborers and Steam Fitters who worked on several construction projects in both
World Trade Center towers are unaccounted for, according to New York City Building and Construction Trades Council President Edward Malloy.Postal Workers staffing U.S. Postal Service facilities in the World
Trade Center and the Pentagon all escaped injury, according to the APWU."Our hearts and prayers go out to the victims of yesterday's terrorist attacks, and to the hundreds of families that have lost
loved ones," Sweeney said. "And with deep gratitude and admiration we thank the thousands of emergency services and medical workers fighting to rescue and save victims at the World Trade Center complex
and the Pentagon."In addition to the teams of union emergency services and medical workers conducting rescue and aid missions in New York and suburban Washington, D.C., union volunteers are contributing
their skills, funds and even blood. More than 1,000 Iron Workers from the mid-Atlantic and New England area have volunteered their services for rescue, recovery and cleanup, according to the union's national
headquarters.
In New York City, Ironworkers Local 40 Business Representative Bob Walsh said union members began calling the local Tuesday morning shortly after the news of the attack to ask how to help.
By early afternoon, when the National Guard called on the union, hundreds of workers from several city construction unions were available to assist.
Working with cranes, bulldozers, end loaders and by
hand, union construction workers began Tuesday evening and throughout the night to remove the massive debris from the streets in lower Manhattan, but had not gained access to the buildings' wreckage as of
early Wednesday afternoon.
Walsh said many of the workers returning from the site were shaken and described "a very gruesome scene."
The New York City Building and Construction Trades
Council "is operating around the clock. We have probably 1,000 people who are down there now assisting the rescue, and we'll be working throughout the entire cleanup," said Malloy. Union members
are responding to calls for contributions to relief funds set up for New York City workers, Washington, D.C.-area workers and workers at both the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and are turning out at Red
Cross offices and hospitals to donate blood. To find out where to donate blood, call the Red Cross at 1-800-GIVE-LIFE.
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