Airport workers fear Ebola

A LACK OF protection from Ebola won't fly for subcontracted airport workers.

Employees trying to unionize as well as representatives from SEIU, a labor union that represents more than 1.9 million workers in the U.S. and Canada, gathered at Philadelphia International Airport yesterday to voice concerns about potential exposure to the virus.

"We need to replace fear with facts," said Councilman Curtis Jones Jr., who spoke at the event. "This virus doesn't know hierarchy. It doesn't know the CEO from the person doing the cabins in the airplane. It will attack whoever. So if you think you're protecting the hierarchy within the organization, without protecting the rank and file, you're being penny-wise and pound-foolish."

Ebola, an epidemic in West Africa that the CDC says has taken the lives of more than 4,500 people, is passed through direct contact with blood or bodily fluid of an infected person.

Airport workers said they are only given thin latex gloves as a precaution while cleaning.

Speakers said those who clean the airplanes, bathrooms and additional facilities should be given the same protection and training as health workers.

The Department of Homeland Security recently announced that travelers from the most affected countries will have to go through five U.S. airports, none of which are in Pennsylvania. Mayor Nutter said during a City Council hearing last week that the risk of contracting the virus is low.

But Gabriel Morgan, state director of the 145,000-member 32BJ SEIU, the largest union of property-service workers in the U.S., said the issue isn't just Ebola.

"It's everything that you can get when you're exposed to human bodily fluids," he said. "The reason why that's happening is the same reason why their wages are so low. They work for contractors who . . . provide neither for the training of the workers, the wages for the workers or the health care for the workers."