- About 70 workers at the Plum Island Animal Disease Center
went on strike Wednesday.
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- The workers formed a small picket line in Old Saybrook
and a larger one in Orient Point on Long Island - the two sites from which
boats take scientists and support staff to the island each day.
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- The Plum Island lab is one of two run by the U.S. Department
of Agriculture to study animal diseases such as foot and mouth disease
and African swine fever. The island is 8 miles off the Connecticut coast.
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- Spokesmen for the USDA, which has operated the Plum Island
Animal Disease Center for 40 years, said there would be no impact on lab
operations, particularly because the striking workers do not handle research.
The strikers are employed by Maryland-based L.B. & B. Associates.
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- The government said the striking employees operate the
ferries, power plant, wastewater treatment facility and maintain the buildings
and grounds on the government-owned island.
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- Since Sept. 11, armed security has been provided by another
contractor. The strikers were replaced Wednesday with temporary employees.
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- "It's an inconvenience. The cafeteria was closed
today; they had to bring in a plate of sandwich meats for people to eat,"
said Abigail Carreno of Middletown, a research associate who studies foot
and mouth disease on the island.
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- Carreno, who returned to Old Saybrook via boat from the
island Wednesday evening, feared "the island may not be able to handle
a big emergency" because some of the strikers work on the ambulance
and fire crews.
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- "There is no interruption in services. The workers
we've placed there are responsible," Edward Brandon, L. B. & B.
chief operating officer, said Wednesday night.
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- He also said the temporary replacements had the necessary
government clearance to work on the island, located off the northeastern
tip of Long Island.
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- The strike took effect as of 12:01 a.m. Wednesday when
talks that had been going on for a year between the company and Local 30
of the International Union of Operating Engineers broke off.
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- L. B. & B., under a contract with the USDA that is
set to expire Oct.1, has supplied workers to the island for the past six
years.
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- Negotiations, according to the union, are deadlocked
over wages, benefits and changes in working conditions. Strikers picketing
in Old Saybrook, who said they have no quarrel with the USDA, say they
stand to see their wages cut and their seniority and other benefits lost
if the company prevails.
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- "The package we proposed is better than what they
have now," said Brandon. "The next move is the union's."
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- _____
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- Strike At Plum Island Prompts Concerns For Safety
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- "However, scientists and striking workers said there
was very little danger of a leak that could threaten nearby communities"
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- By Marc Santora
- 8-24-2
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- The first strike ever at the Plum Island Animal Disease
Center, the high-security laboratory off Long Island that conducts research
on dangerous infectious animal diseases, has raised concerns among striking
union members, workers still on the island and government officials about
the center's ability to function safely and effectively.
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- The Federal Bureau of Investigation has been called to
the center to investigate allegations of sabotage after the water pressure
on the island failed to generate sufficient power, according to workers
and scientists on the island and government officials. The insufficient
water pressure meant scientists could not use the necropsy rooms, which
are used to examine dead animals, according to witnesses on the island.
Union officials said that the problem was the result of inexperienced workers'
being rushed in to replace the strikers.
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- Other concerns about the center, which is on an 850-acre
island about a mile and a half northeast of Orient Point on the North Fork
of Long Island, include the safety of operating the facility without a
trained fire department, and that the replacement workers have not been
adequately screened and do not have sufficient training to handle an emergency
or even keep essential parts of the island running. However, scientists
and striking workers said there was very little danger of a leak that could
threaten nearby communities.
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- Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton said yesterday that she
was going to ask the appropriate Senate committee to investigate how the
strike was handled and to find out the qualifications of the replacement
workers. "I am concerned," she said in a telephone interview.
"We don't know who these people are who are being put in as replacements."
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- Mrs. Clinton also said: "We are in greater need
of the kind of research that is done there than we have been at any time.
I am just bewildered at why it had to get to this point."
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- The concerns come at a time when debate is heating up
in Washington about the role of Plum Island and whether it should be included
in the Department of Homeland Security.
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- The strike at the Department of Agriculture facility
began on Aug. 13 at midnight, after negotiators failed to reach an agreement
on wages and benefits. Plum Island employs about 200 people, both government
workers and union members. The 76 striking union workers are members of
the International Union of Operating Engineers and are employed by a government
subcontractor, LB&B Associates, based in Columbia, Md. The workers
on strike filled key roles such as operating the waste-water treatment
plant and decontamination plant, and also served as boat operators and
safety technicians.
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- Plum Island is known to residents on Long Island's North
Fork as Mystery Island and has long been the subject of speculation about
the dangerous germs that are studied there. It was even mentioned in the
film "Silence of the Lambs" as a place for the character Hannibal
Lecter to retreat to under heavy surveillance once a year.
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- Beyond the natural barrier of water, the center takes
elaborate precautions to ensure that organisms do not escape from the island.
While people in the labs do not wear suits with self-contained respirators,
everyone who leaves the containment areas has to shower, scrubbing hair
and nails and rinsing mouths. Nothing is permitted to leave the labs without
being disinfected, even eyeglasses.
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- The only outbreak on the island occurred in 1978, when
the spread of foot and mouth disease forced officials to kill all the livestock.
There has never been a leak to the mainland.
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- The most serious problems on the island because of the
strike appear to involve the water system. The island gets its water from
a series of wells that feed a central water tower. According to witnesses
on the island, at some point in the last week part of the pressure being
generated was lost. Water is central to many of the activities performed
on the island, especially the cleaning.
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- Representative Rob Simmons of Connecticut said he was
told that the F.B.I. had been called to the island, which is close to his
Congressional district, to investigate.
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- Witnesses on the island also confirmed that the F.B.I.
was investigating allegations of sabotage.
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- Jacob Bunch, a spokesman for LB&B Associates, said,
"We are not going to comment on the F.B.I. investigation." The
F.B.I. also had no comment, and a request to visit the island was denied
by the Agriculture Department.
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- Robert Borrusso, 42, has worked at the center for six
years and is licensed to operate the waste-water treatment plant. He said
that when he left work on the afternoon of Aug. 13, before a decision had
been reached about a strike, the system was operating properly. "When
I left at 3:30 the water pressure was adequate," he said.
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- Mr. Borrusso said that while the well system was not
overly complicated, some things are not labeled, so an operator has to
know his way around. "As long as I've been there, none of the supervisors
have operated this system," he said. "They were the ones operating
it last week and now they have people from I don't know where operating
it."
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- Asked where the replacement workers were trained and
how they were screened for the jobs they now fill on the island, Mr. Bunch
said: "In terms of training I will tell you that people are well trained
or they wouldn't be there. I am not going to get into how they are trained."
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- He also would not discuss the issue of security clearances.
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- An official with the engineers union in Washington said
that he had been notified by the Department of Labor about a call from
a replacement worker seeking help.
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- "This person said they were sleeping on cots, working
12-hour shifts and not being allowed to make calls off the island,"
the official said. "He described their condition as being held captive."
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- Ed Brandon, the chief operating officer of LB&B,
said the worker was not a hostage and had already left the island. Mr.
Brandon insisted everything was running smoothly.
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- A government official familiar with operations at Plum
Island cautioned that while questions about the ability of the center to
operate effectively were legitimate given the unusual nature of a strike
in such a highly sensitive location, union workers had alleged safety abuses
in the past to draw attention to their case. Until 1991, all workers on
Plum Island were federal employees. In 1992, many jobs were turned over
to private industry.
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- "A decade after that happened you still have smoldering
resentment," the official said, adding that the situation exposed
a bigger battle over the future of Plum Island.
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- "You have a group of people striking on the island
who are blissfully unaware that the whole operation may cease to exist,"
the official said.
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- Over the past 10 to 15 years, the official said, the
amount of money appropriated to keep the center running has remained about
the same, while the costs have risen.
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- "There are two missions on Plum Island," the
official explained. "One is research and the other is diagnosis, and
both of these programs have been reduced over the years." It is striking,
the official said, because "there has never been a time when the government
needed Plum Island more than it needs it today."
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- The only other comparable germ-research labs in the country
are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and a United
States Army laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland.
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- President Bush has proposed making the Plum Island research
center part of Homeland Security. Last year, Congress appropriated $23
million to research design options for a new lab at Plum Island. However,
nine months later, no design plans have been made and people familiar with
the situation say that is because there is talk that the new facility,
which could cost around $250 million, will not be built on Plum Island.
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- Residents in the communities near Plum Island have become
accustomed to their mysterious neighbor. Bob Burns, a trustee for the village
of Greenport, who handles relations with the center, said there was not
much anxiety in the community regarding the strike. "We assume they
will be able to manage out there, whatever is going on," he said.
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- Mr. Simmons said he has heard worries from people nearby.
"I have gotten calls from constituents asking if it is safe,"
he said. "People worry about Plum Island under routine circumstances,
so you can expect that they worry more when circumstances are as unusual
as these."
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