POWERLESS AT THE POST OFFICE

 by Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Col. Writ. 11/29/01]

Copyright 2001

    In the wake of the mid-October 2001 Anthrax scare, the imagery of Congressional members and staffers fleeing their Washington offices and chambers spoke volumes about the power of fear that motivates human conduct. This was quickly reinforced by the almost unprecedented evacuation of the august Supreme Court as word leaked out of the suspected presence of Anthrax spores at an off- site mail facility that serviced the nation's highest  judicial body.

    The evacuation of Capitol Hill and the Supreme Court building brought an eerie silence to an area that was long unaccustomed to such a hush, save on national holidays, weekends or seasonal vacations.

    What it also revealed was the power of the powerful to protect their interests, no matter how infinitesimal the threat, while relegating those perceived to be lower on the food chain to the possible exposure of a significantly greater threat.  For although no traces of Anthrax were found in the offices or mail rooms of the House of Representatives, both Senators and Representatives closed up shop, and left.

    Postal workers, however, perhaps closest to the contaminating agent, worked on, blissfully unaware of, and uninformed of, the real and deadly risks facing them.

    Neither were they tested or given the long-term regimen of the antibiotic, Cipro, as were their Congressional colleagues.

    Although some postal areas were cleaned and detoxified the rank-and-file postal employees weren't informed of the results of any testing done in their work areas.

    Such clearly disparate responses and treatment has left postal workers feeling like the low men (and women) on the totem pole; thus, angry, resentful and scared.

    It is perhaps impolite to point out the obvious, but an undeniable truth emerges from the varied responses to the Anthrax scare: many, if not most, postal employees are black and of Latin origin.  By contrast, postmen cannot strike.

    Imagine their fears multiplied tenfold when a  postman died, but his 911 call recording remained to broadcast his fears:

 911 Operator:  What's the problem?
        Mr. Thomas L. Morris:  My breathing is very,
        very, labored.
        Q:    How old are you?
        A:    I'm 55.  Ah, I don't know if I have been, but
                I suspect that I might have been exposed
                to Anthrax.
        Q:    You know when or what - -
        A:    Ah, it was last what, last Saturday, a week
                ago last Saturday [Oct. 13] morning at
                work.  I work for the Postal Service, I've
                been to the doctor.  I went to the doctor
                Thursday.  He took a culture but he never
                got back to me with the results.  I guess
                there was some hangup over the weekend.
                I'm not sure.  But in the meantime, I went
                through achiness and headachiness.  This
                started Tuesday.  Now I'm having
                difficulty breathing.  And just to move any
                distance I feel like I'm going to pass out ..
                It was --- a woman found the envelope and I
                was in the vicinity.  It had powder in it.  They
                never let us know whether that thing had --
                was Anthrax or not.  They never treated the
                people who were around this particular
                individual and the supervisor who handled
                the envelope.  So I don't know if it is or not.
                I'm just --- I've never been able to find out. 
                I've been calling.  But the symptoms that
                I've had are what was described to me in
                a letter that they put out almost to the T ...
                The doctor thought that it was just a virus
                or something .... [fr. 911 call, Oct. 21, 2001]

   
 Thomas L. Morris, his words an eerie electronic echo from the grave, spoke in ways that resonated deeply with his fellow postal employees when he expressed his feelings about USPS management: "... I have a tendency not to  believe these people."

    Members of the New York Metro Area Postal Union sued in Federal Court to force the Postal Service to fully clean, detoxify, and close the Morgan postal facility in Manhattan until this could be assured.  The U.S. District Court denied the injunction, saying postal workers had not "demonstrated that there is a likelihood of irreparable harm."  By noting that the Morgan facility was the busiest in Manhattan, the court seemed to be balancing the harms to both sides.  In reality it was a balancing of power, for although the union is vast it is forbidden by law to strike.  And a union unable to  withdraw its labor lacks a powerful tool.

    Distrustful, and largely unheralded, they wait for another deadly shoe to drop.

 

Text © copyright 2001 by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
All rights reserved.
Reprinted by permission of the author.

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