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Preserving Plum Island?
https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/04/24/preserving-plum-island/
APRIL 24, 2024
BY KARL GROSSMANFacebookTwitterRedditEmailatoa-print-icon.png
Plum Island vor Long Island im Staat New York, image by Vereinigte Staaten.
Can Plum Island, an 843-acre …island a mile and a half off the eastern end of Long Island—originally the site in the early 1950s of a U.S. Army laboratory with a mission to develop biological warfare to be used to poison livestock in the Soviet Union—be safely preserved as a “national monument” with public access.
That is being advocated by a grouping of environmentalists and Congressman Nick LaLota who has introduced a bill facilitating this. The district of the Long Island, New York Republican includes Plum Island.
But as an official of the National Park Service testified last month at a hearing in Washington on LaLota’s measure: “The department appreciates the bill’s intent to increase public access to and to protect Plum Island’s natural and cultural heritage, and we support that goal. However, given the multiple hazards to human health and safety that may exist, we have serious concerns about the bill’s requirements that the department assume administrative jurisdiction over the island.”
Michael T. Reynolds, deputy director for Congressional Relations of the National Park Service, a part of the Department of Interior, continued: “Plum Island’s long history of serving as a site for military operations and animal pathogen research has led to a series of ongoing environmental challenges.”
He said the Plum Island Animal Disease Center’s “biocontainment facilities must be decontaminated.” He said an environmental assessment by the Department of Homeland Security “recommends that a decontamination process, complete validation testing, and soil testing be conducted… Decontamination will include methods such as scrubbing, liquid cleaning, thermal disinfection via autoclaves, chemical disinfection, and fumigation. As a result of the use of cleaning chemicals such as formaldehyde and the thermal disinfection of nearly all equipment within the facility, once usable infrastructure at PIADC will be rendered unsafe for human occupation until this costly decontamination work can be completed.”
Also, “A number of waste management areas must be remediated,” Reynolds said. He said the environmental assessment notes that this includes “numerous sites of concern, including removing buried waste, capping contaminated areas, and conducting soil and groundwater monitoring. However, 10 additional sites of concern require further action.”
“In addition,” said Reynolds, “the Department foresees budgetary challenges—and potentially further environmental concerns—involved with rehabilitating or demolishing aging buildings, maintaining a costly marine transportation system, and upgrading island infrastructure to accommodate use in a manner that is safe and accessible for employees and the public.”
Michael Carroll, author of the New York Times best-selling book “Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory,” has long said Plum Island can never be made safe for the public. “The island is an environmental disaster,” says Carroll. “You can’t let anybody on it…There is contamination all over the island” and thus it needs to be “forsaken.”
Up until recent decades all waste generated by the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and from prior animal disease work stayed on the island. No waste was removed, including animal remains. Some of it was incinerated, much of it buried on the island.
Reporting in 1993 how Plum Island was the U.S. Army site with a Cold War mission of developing biological warfare to be used against livestock in the Soviet Union was John McDonald, an investigative reporter for the Long Island newspaper Newsday. “A 1950s military plan to cripple the Soviet economy by killing horses, cattle and swine called for making biological warfare weapons out of exotic animal diseases at a Plum Island laboratory, now-declassified Army records reveal,” he wote. A facsimile of one of the Army records documenting the mission covered the front page of Newsday. There was an extensive article headlined “Plum Island’s Shadowy Past.”
Carroll’s book discloses, based on research by Carroll, an attorney, in the National Archives in Washington, the U.S. military became concerned about having to feed millions of people in the Soviet Union if it destroyed food animals. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff “found that a war with the USSR would best be fought with conventional and nuclear means,” he relates in “Lab 257.”
Thus, the island was turned over to the Department of Agriculture to conduct research into foreign animal diseases, although department officials have acknowledged doing “defensive” biological warfare research on it, too.
Decades later, after the 9-11 attack, Plum Island was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Homeland Security out of concern about its vulnerability and access by terrorists seeking disease agents it experimented with, some of which cross over to people. The island, a mile and a half off Orient Point at the end of the North Fork of Long Island, sits along a major water route between Long Island and Connecticut.
The U.S. thereafter decided to shut down its Plum Island Animal Disease Center and shift operations to a National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility that is to function at the government’s highest safety level, BioSafety Level 4. Built at a cost of $1.25 billion in Kansas, it opened last year.
With operations on Plum Island being made extraneous, the government first considered selling it for private use. Donald Trump, in 2013 before becoming president, was interested in constructing “a world-class golf course” on it. LaLota’s predecessor in Congress, Lee Zeldin of Shirley, also a Republican, and some environmentalists, opposed a sale and Zeldin introduced a bill that was enacted to keep the island in government hands and preserve it. LaLota’s measure advances that.
Carroll’s “Lab 257” documents a Nazi connection to the establishment of the Army laboratory on Plum Island. According to his book, Erich Traub, a scientist who worked for the Third Reich doing biological warfare, was a “founding father.”
During World War II, “as lab chief of Insel Riems, a secret Nazi biological warfare laboratory on a crescent-shaped island in the Baltic Sea, Traub worked for Adolph Hitler’s second-in-charge, SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler, on live germ trials,” states “Lab 257.”
Its objective was developing biological warfare to be directed against animals in the Soviet Union.
“Ironically, Traub spent the prewar period of his scientific career on a fellowship at the Rockefeller Institute in Princeton, New Jersey, perfecting his skills in viruses and bacteria under the tutelage of American experts before returning to Nazi Germany on the eve of war,” says “Lab 257.”
While in the U.S. in the 1930s, too, relates the book, Traub was a member of the Amerika-Deutscher Volksbund which was involved in pro-Nazi rallies held weekly at Camp Siegfried in Yaphank on Long Island, owned by the German American Bund.
With the end of the war, Traub came back to the United States under Operation Paperclip, a secret program under which more than 1,600 Nazi scientists and engineers, including Wernher von Braun, were brought to the U.S.
“Traub’s detailed explanation of the secret operation on Insel Riems” given to officials at Fort Detrick in Maryland, the Army’s chemical and biological warfare headquarters, and to the CIA, “laid the groundwater for Fort Detrick’s offshore germ warfare animal disease lab on Plum Island,” says “Lab 257.” And Plum Island’s purpose, writes Carroll, became what Insel Riems had been: to develop biological warfare to be directed against animals in the Soviet Union with the Cold War conflict between the U.S. and the Soviet Union having begun.
“Lab 257” also maintains that there is a link between the Plum Island center and the emergence of Lyme disease. It “suddenly surfaced” 10 miles from Plum Island “in Old Lyme, Connecticut in 1975.” Carroll cites years of experimentation with ticks on Plum Island and the possibility of an accidental or purposeful release.
“The tick is the perfect germ vector,” says “Lab 257,” “which is why it has long been fancied as a germ weapon by early biowarriors from Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan to the Soviet Union and the United States.”
“A source who worked on Plum Island in the 1950s,” the book states, “recalls that animal handlers and a scientist released ticks outdoors on the island. ‘They called him the Nazi scientist…”
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at State University of New York/College at Old Westbury, and is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet, and the Beyond Nuclear handbook, The U.S. Space Force and the dangers of nuclear power and nuclear war in space. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.
Can Plum Island, an 843-acre island a mile and a half off the eastern end of Long Island—originally the site in the early 1950s of a U.S. Army…
www.counterpunch.orgPalestine: Launch of Palestinian Media Sector Coordination Group
https://www.ifj.org/media-centre/news/detail/category/press-releases/article/palestine-launch-of-palestinian-media-sector-coordination-group
23 April 2024
Four media associations and organisations met online… on 17 April to launch the “Palestinian Media Sector Coordination Group-PMSCG.” The International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) welcomes the launch of the group which will aim to support journalism in Palestine. The group is composed of the Palestinian Journalists Syndicate (PJS), the Palestinian Publishers Association/Founding Committee (PPA), the Palestinian Association of Private Radios (PAPR), and the Media Development Centre (MDC) at Birzeit University.
csm_Image20240417134337_bfdc9fc322.png
Credit: IFJ
The group’s establishment comes amid the worst crises facing journalists and media in Palestine since the start of the war in Gaza on 7 October. Over 100 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed and many more injured or displaced.
The PMSCG aims to lead the rehabilitation and improvement of the media sector and to launch a process of rebuilding a more resilient media in Palestine.
At the meeting, the PMSCG resolved to organise a joint event on 3 May to mark World Press Freedom Day, to highlight journalists' challenges in Palestine and possible ways to overcome them. The event will also bring together all organisations involved in supporting journalists, and create an “Alliance for freedom of expression and fundamental rights in Palestine”.
The organisations that launched the PMSCG were represented in the meeting by Buthayna Alsemeiri, director of MDC, Naser Abu Baker, president of PJS, Raed Othman, chair of PPA, and Reyad Khamis, chair of PAPR. Representatives of the IFJ also attended as observers.
For more information, please contact IFJ on +32 2 235 22 16
The IFJ represents more than 600
Four media associations and organisations met online on 17 April to launch the “Palestinian Media Sector Coordination Group-PMSCG.” The…
www.ifj.orgOn Pacifica’s Capitalism, Race & Democracy
East Palestine Chemical Exposure Endangers Health; Workers Poisoned at Piketon Nuclear Plant; French Railway Workers Fight Privatization
…https://capitalismraceanddemocracy.org/2024/04/22/east-palestine-chemical-exposure-endangers-health-workers-poisoned-at-piketon-nuclear-plant-french-railway-workers-fight-privatization/
February 3 was the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the subsequent toxic explosion and fire in East Palestine, Ohio. Pacifica’s Thomas O’Rourke spoke to Dr. Beatrice Golomb. Dr. Golomb heads the Golomb Research Group at the School of Medicine at UC San Diego, which is currently studying the health effects on volunteers recruited from the region. For more information and/or to enroll in their on-going studies visit www.golombresearchgroup.org.
***
Piketon, Ohio has been a nuclear processing site for over 60 years. The Portsmouth Gaseous Diffusion Plant, now run by Martin Marietta, has poisoned tens of thousands of workers and residents during that time.
Vina Colley was a union electrician at the plant for many years. She now reports that despite the continuing contamination, cancers, and deaths, they want to build more nuclear plants and bring in nuclear waste from throughout the world. She is president of Portsmouth/Piketon Residents for Environmental Safety and Security and co-founder of National Nuclear Workers For Justice. She spoke at the East Palestine, Ohio worker, environmental, and community conference on March 23rd.
***
The attack on French workers is escalating, with capitalists wanting to privatize their public train system. At the same time, President Emmanuel Macron is threatening to send French troops to Ukraine. Pacifica’s Steve Zeltzer spoke with French railway worker and CGT unionist Axel Persson about both issues.
And that concludes today’s edition of Capitalism, Race & Democracy. We thank all of Pacifica’s sister stations and affiliates who contribute to the production of this show. Today’s program was produced by the Capitalism, Race & Democracy collective, with contributions from Steve Zeltzer, Thomas O’Rourke, and Polina Vasiliev.
You can find this and all previous episodes at our website “capitalism race and democracy dot ORG”. Make sure you click the subscribe button. Follow us on X, formerly Twitter, @PacificaCRD. I’ve been your host, Ann Garrison.
Music:
Mike Stout, “Stand up for East Palestine”.
The Pretenders, “My City was Gone”
February 3 was the one-year anniversary of the Norfolk Southern train derailment and the subsequent toxic explosion and fire in East Palestine,…
capitalismraceanddemocracy.orgStruggles In The National Nurse Union NNU, Crisis In Healthcare, Democracy & The Shift Change Slate
https://youtu.be/P3ln-OwRPh8
The National Nurses Union is one of the fastest growing unions in the country in the midst of a major healthcare crisis for nurses and all healthcare workers.… The NNU has grown in part by merging other nurses unions together and according to members of a national Slate Shift Change there has been very little democratic process and transparency in these mergers and most nurses have not been educated about how their union operates and how to participate in their union to make changes and even become aware of union elections.
They also discuss the struggle over the staffers who are not nurses dividing nurses and also pushing concessions like eliminating defined pensions which are one of the gains of all unions. Nurses interviewed include Xenia, Jehad Adwan, John Hieronymus and Rosita Villarroel
Additional Media:
NNU-CNA Sutter Alta Bates Hospital Nurses Fed Up & Strike Against Concession Contracts
https://youtu.be/TrwWdQOPxkQ
Bay Area Alta Bates CNA Nurses Revolt
https://labornotes.org/2022/12/alta-bates-nurses-revolt
Cal/OSHA finds Summit campus of Alta Bates Summit Medical Center guilty of eight serious violations, cites hospital for $155,250
https://www.nationalnursesunited.org/press/calosha-finds-alta-bates-summit-medical-center-guilty-eight-serious-violations
Healthcare Workers, Covid & Black Lives Matter with Luci Riley NNU CNA Alta Bates Hospital
https://youtu.be/i_lwtGNMN0E
$8000 A Week Scabs At Sutter Alta Bates Hospital As CNA NNU Nurses & Techs Strike For 9th Time
https://youtu.be/sjMYmkAZaFk
Sutter Alta-Bates CNA Nurses 7th Strike To Keep Benefits/Conditions & Defend Patient Care
https://youtu.be/RQjcbn69Ypw
Nurses, Covid-19, The Healthcare Crisis & Defending Public Health With NNU Pres. Deborah Burger R.N.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmZHsfSLZ_A&t=1s
STOP Trump's CDC Rules On Masks! NNU-CNA & Other Unions Demand That Gov Newsom Enforce
Cal/OSHA Rules To Protect Healthcare Workers
https://youtu.be/sLS4Q23BUvE
UCSF Nurses Say We Are Not Prepared For Ebola! NNU CNA Nurses Demand Mandatory Protocols
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIIEnJuMhl4
"When Nurses Aren't Safe, Patients Aren't Safe" UCSF NNU-CNA Nurses Rally On Coronavirus Pandemic
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTbtM_5p9jY
NNU/CNA SF CPMC Nurses Demand PPE Equipment & More Staffing While CPMC Gets Millions From Government
https://youtu.be/jElrN8aFMO0
STOP Trump's CDC Rules On Masks! NNU-CNA & Other Unions Demand That Gov Newsom Enforce
Cal/OSHA Rules To Protect Healthcare Workers
https://youtu.be/sLS4Q23BUvE
No More "One Mask Per Shift"! SF NNU CNA Nurses Demand Real Protection At St. Mary's Hospital
https://youtu.be/1LzXXdSXRH8
Global Nurses Solidarity Assembly In San Francisco & Nurses Speak Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NC-9RrSQzAM&t=851s
COVID-19 SF DPH Healthcare Workers Under Attack, Health & Safety, Racism & Retaliation
https://youtu.be/ab0u9NdFNeA
Additional Info:
Shift Change
https://www.shiftchangennu.org
WorkWeek
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
The National Nurses Union is one of the fastest growing. unions in the country in the midst of a major healthcare crisis for nurses and all …
youtu.beStruggles In The National Nurse Union NNU, Crisis In Healthcare, Democracy & The Shift Change Slate
https://youtu.be/P3ln-OwRPh8
The National Nurses Union is one of the fastest growing. unions in the country in the midst of a major
healthcare crisis for nurses and all healthcare …workers. The NNU has grown in part by merging other
nurses unions together and according to members of a national Slate Shift Change there has been
very little democratic process and transparency in these mergers and most nurses have not been
educated about how their union operates and how to participate in their union to make changes
and even become aware of union elections.
They also discuss the struggle over the staffers who are not nurses dividing nurses and also pushing
concessions like eliminating defined pensions which are one of the gains of all unions. Nurses
interviewed include Xenia, Jehad Adwan, John Hieronymus and Rosita Villarroel
Additional Info:
Additional Media:
Shift Change
https://www.shiftchangennu.org
WorkWeek
Production of Labor Video Project
www.labormedia.net
The National Nurses Union is one of the fastest growing. unions in the country in the midst of a major healthcare crisis for nurses and all …
youtu.beStruggles In The National Nurses Union NNU, Crisis In Healthcare, Democracy & The Shift Change Slate
WW 4-25-24 Police Attack Palestine Rally At Labor Notes SF Library Workers & French Rail
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww-4-25-24-police-attack-palestine-rally-at-labornotes-sf-library-worker-french-rail
WorkWeek covers the attack by police of a labor palestine rally in front of… the Labor Notes conference on
April 19, 2024. Then WorkWeek covers a rally of San Francisco Library workers who are facing safety
issues on the job and also privatization. SEIU 1021 and IFPTE Local 21 members talk about the issues
and the upcoming contract.
Last WorkWeek looks at the struggle of French railway workers with CGT WFTU locomotive railway
worker Axel Persson about the struggles in rail and the fight against privatization. He also discusses
the role of the AFL-CIO and the danger of world war.
WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
WW 4-25-24 East Palestine Class Action Settlement & Aussie MUA On Palestine
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio/ww-4-25-24-east-palestine-class-action-settlement-aussie-mua-on-palestine
WorkWeek hears from residents and workers of East Palestine about the proposed class action settlement
to compensate the people of East Palestine. Residents LIUNA 1059 member Chris Albright and SEIU 1199
member Jamie Rae Wallace talk about the poisoning of the community by vinyl chloride which was ignited
over the community by Norfolk Southern railway. They talk about the fight to get healthcare and the need to
get President Biden to declare the area a mass incident casualty site under the Stafford Act.
Next WorkWeek interviewed Maritime Union of Australia Sydney Branch secretary Paul Keating about the
struggle to shutdown the Zim line in solidarity with Palestinian workers. He also discusses the war drive by
the US to surround China and the AUKUS agreement.
WorkWeek
https://soundcloud.com/workweek-radio
WorkWeek hears from residents and workers of East Palestine about the proposed class action settlement to compensate the people of East Palestine….
soundcloud.comGoogle has fired an additional 20 employees who participated in a protest last week against the company’s defense contract with the Israeli government.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/google-layoffs-israel-19418256.php
This brings the total number of employees laid off due to …the protest to 50, according to the group that organized the demonstrations, No Tech for Apartheid.
Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the group, said some of the dismissed employees were “nonparticipating bystanders” during the sit-in protests held on April 16 at Google’s offices in Sunnyvale and New York. The group labeled the tech giant’s action as an “aggressive and desperate act of retaliation.”
While Google confirmed the additional layoffs on Tuesday, it did not provide a specific number.
The Mountain View company had previously described the in-office protests as “completely unacceptable behavior” that hindered some employees’ access to their facilities, damaged property and created a threatening environment.
A Google spokesperson said that the company has concluded its investigation into the incident, adding, “We have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity.”
About 80 people participated in the protest at the Google building on Borregas Avenue in Sunnyvale, police spokesperson Dzanh Le said. Most protesters dispersed shortly after noon, but five remained inside the facility and refused to leave, resulting in their arrests.
Google disputed No Tech for Apartheid’s claim that the company dismissed anyone “physically in the vicinity of the protest,” including those not actively participating in the demonstration.
“To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings,” the Google spokesperson said. “We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this.”
The protests were the latest demonstrations against the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.
Thousands of people protest outside Google offices in San Francisco in December. Demonstrators protested Google’s contract with Israel that provides facial recognition and other technologies, amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Thousands of people protest outside Google offices in San Francisco in December. Demonstrators protested Google’s contract with Israel that provides facial recognition and other technologies, amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle
In December, hundreds of protesters staged a “die-in” in front of Google’s San Francisco offices. A few months before that, in August, Google workers and activists shut down a portion of Howard Street to protest in front of San Francisco’s Moscone Center during the Google Cloud conference.
Google defended its contract, stating it is crucial for infrastructure purposes.
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” the company said. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
The protests came more than six months after an attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths in Israel, according to Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry. Additionally, Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have led to nearly 35,000 deaths, according to the latest count from the Palestinian health ministry.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has urged employees to keep politics out of the workplace and to adhere to the company’s policies of acceptable behavior.
Chronicle staff writers Nora Mishanec and Jordan Parker contributed to this report.
Reach Aidin Vaziri: avaziri@sfchronicle.com
Google fires 20 more employees involved in protests of a contract with the Israeli government
www.sfchronicle.comLabor For Palestine Rally At 2024 Labor Notes Conference
Google has fired an additional 20 employees who participated in a protest last week against the company’s defense contract with the Israeli government.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/tech/article/google-layoffs-israel-19418256.php
Google has fired an additional 20 employees who …participated in a protest last week against the company’s defense contract with the Israeli government.
This brings the total number of employees laid off due to the protest to 50, according to the group that organized the demonstrations, No Tech for Apartheid.
Jane Chung, a spokesperson for the group, said some of the dismissed employees were “nonparticipating bystanders” during the sit-in protests held on April 16 at Google’s offices in Sunnyvale and New York. The group labeled the tech giant’s action as an “aggressive and desperate act of retaliation.”
While Google confirmed the additional layoffs on Tuesday, it did not provide a specific number.
The Mountain View company had previously described the in-office protests as “completely unacceptable behavior” that hindered some employees’ access to their facilities, damaged property and created a threatening environment.
A Google spokesperson said that the company has concluded its investigation into the incident, adding, “We have terminated the employment of additional employees who were found to have been directly involved in disruptive activity.”
About 80 people participated in the protest at the Google building on Borregas Avenue in Sunnyvale, police spokesperson Dzanh Le said. Most protesters dispersed shortly after noon, but five remained inside the facility and refused to leave, resulting in their arrests.
Google disputed No Tech for Apartheid’s claim that the company dismissed anyone “physically in the vicinity of the protest,” including those not actively participating in the demonstration.
“To reiterate, every single one of those whose employment was terminated was personally and definitively involved in disruptive activity inside our buildings,” the Google spokesperson said. “We carefully confirmed and reconfirmed this.”
The protests were the latest demonstrations against the company’s $1.2 billion cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.
Thousands of people protest outside Google offices in San Francisco in December. Demonstrators protested Google’s contract with Israel that provides facial recognition and other technologies, amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Thousands of people protest outside Google offices in San Francisco in December. Demonstrators protested Google’s contract with Israel that provides facial recognition and other technologies, amid the Israel-Hamas war.
Santiago Mejia/The Chronicle
In December, hundreds of protesters staged a “die-in” in front of Google’s San Francisco offices. A few months before that, in August, Google workers and activists shut down a portion of Howard Street to protest in front of San Francisco’s Moscone Center during the Google Cloud conference.
Google defended its contract, stating it is crucial for infrastructure purposes.
“We have been very clear that the Nimbus contract is for workloads running on our commercial cloud by Israeli government ministries, who agree to comply with our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy,” the company said. “This work is not directed at highly sensitive, classified, or military workloads relevant to weapons or intelligence services.”
The protests came more than six months after an attack by Hamas militants on Oct. 7, which resulted in approximately 1,200 deaths in Israel, according to Lior Haiat, a spokesperson for the country’s foreign ministry. Additionally, Israel’s counteroffensive attacks in Gaza have led to nearly 35,000 deaths, according to the latest count from the Palestinian health ministry.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai has urged employees to keep politics out of the workplace and to adhere to the company’s policies of acceptable behavior.
Chronicle staff writers Nora Mishanec and Jordan Parker contributed to this report.
Reach Aidin Vaziri: avaziri@sfchronicle.com
Google fires 20 more employees involved in protests of a contract with the Israeli government
www.sfchronicle.com‘Scary, unsafe’: Nurses at S.F. General argue understaffing is at crisis level despite hiring
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/nurses-s-f-general-argue-understaffing-crisis-19418346.php
By Maggie Angst
April 23, 2024
Signage for Zuckerberg San Francisco General …Hospital and Trauma Center and directional signage is seen at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center on Tuesday, November 15, 2022 in San Francisco, Calif.
Signage for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and directional signage is seen at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center on Tuesday, November 15, 2022 in San Francisco, Calif.
Lea Suzuki/The Chronicle
Hannah Lucero shows up for her nursing shifts at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center and says she’s often told there will be no breaks.
Due to a lack of adequate staffing in the hospital’s inpatient psych unit, Lucero said, she and her co-workers are forced to take on extra patients, frequently work mandated overtime and suffer repeated assaults from patients. Lucero said she’s been punched in the face and watched her co-workers get shoved, hit and even knocked unconscious.
“Unstaffed shifts are not just inconvenient or really busy,” she said. “They’re scary, unsafe, lonely and mentally exhausting.”
In the midst of contentious contract negotiations with the city, nurses employed by the city are once again raising the alarm over what they say are unsafe working conditions, reduced quality of care and rising wait times due to chronic understaffing.
A Department of Public Health survey, which was presented publicly at a Tuesday meeting of the city’s Health Commission, found that 73% of the hospital’s workforce would not recommend S.F. General as a place to receive care. And the percent of hospital employees that would recommend working at S.F. General plunged from 63% of respondents in 2019 to 32% in 2023, according to the survey.
At the meeting, the hospital’s chief experience officer Aiyana Johnson acknowledged that staff sentiment was a challenge coming out of the pandemic.
“There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, but there’s a lot of work that we are doing,” Johnson said, citing well-being pop-up days, pet therapy and in-person wellness classes offered to hospital staff.
The labor union representing San Francisco’s public nurses is one of the last holdouts after the city earlier this month reached tentative labor contracts with several of its largest unions. Those contracts are expected to establish a $25 per hour minimum wage for city workers, among other provisions, according to SEIU Local 1021, San Francisco’s largest public-sector union.
San Francisco unions threatened to strike this year after a state employment board recently struck provisions in the city charter that forbade them from doing so. A strike would deliver a blow to Mayor London Breed, who is trying to close a projected $789.3 million two-year budget gap just months before a competitive re-election race.
Heather Bollinger, an emergency room nurse at S.F. General, said the nurses are “nowhere near close” to reaching a contract with the city. The nurses are seeking higher wages, increased full-time nursing staff and a reduced reliance on contract workers.
According to Bollinger, nearly 100 emergency department nurses have resigned in the past three years — the majority of which were due to safety concerns.
“It’s partly about the actual fear of being assaulted, but it’s also the fear of having a bad patient outcome, because you are spread so thin,” she said. “Nurses don’t feel confident. They don’t feel able to give the care that people deserve.”
At a Civil Service Commission last month, the Department of Public Health requested an additional $100 million to hire “intermittent, supplemental and travel nursing personnel” through 2027.
Troy Williams, director of quality at S.F. General, said at that meeting that the department’s priority was to fill permanent nursing positions. However, because of employee leaves of absences, turnover and patient surges, the department also needed to supplement with contracted nurses to provide “consistent and high quality patient care.”
According to Williams, approximately 95% of nursing hours are still met with permanent employees.
Jennifer Esteen, SEIU 1021 Community RN chapter president, said the increased investment on temporary contract workers over permanent staff “defies logic.”
“I don’t understand what the goal is for the Department of Public Health right now,” Esteen said. “It feels like they are trying really hard to create hardship in the hospital, instead of creating a positive, safe place for people to get well.”
Kim Walden, the department’s chief human resources officer, said at the March Civil Service Commission meeting that the department had “worked hard to improve retention” and hire more full-time staff.
The number of full-time nurses across the Department of Public Health reached 1,340 last month, the highest level in the city’s history. The vacancy rate for full-time nurses dropped from 15.44% in April 2023 to 11.24% in March 2023, according to Walden.
Despite those gains, Lucero said she “doesn’t see it.”
After working as a nurse technician at S.F. General for six years and earning her nursing degree in 2022, it took her nine months to get hired by the department as a registered nurse. Even then, she could only get a per-diem position without benefits. The process has made her contemplate whether staying at S.F. General is the best choice.
“I’m not upset or burnt out because of the population we work with,” she said. “I’m upset and exhausted to be part of the system that is not doing the bare minimum to support us by providing enough staff.”
Reach Maggie Angst: maggie.angst@sfchronicle.com
In the midst of contentious contract negotiations with the city, nurses are once again raising the alarm over what they say are unsafe work.
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