Jun 20, 2009

Swine Flu And Social Security

From a press release issued by the American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), the union that represents most Social Security employees:
The Social Security Administration has taken no action to close two offices in Wisconsin despite several of its employees being exposed to the H1N1 flu virus. “This has become a matter of public safety and SSA needs to act,” stated Loni Schultz, president of American Federation of Government Employees Local 1346, which represents employees in several SSA offices in the Wisconsin area. “We have an employee who was diagnosed with swine flu on June 16th. This employee had been to multiple offices prior to, and on the day of being diagnosed, including the Milwaukee DT Reuss Building and the Waukesha, Wisconsin SSA office. There now are four employees at the Waukesha, Wisconsin office with suspected cases. It is appalling that SSA has taken no action to close or sanitize these offices, or notify the public of this exposure.” ...

According to a GAO report released this week, SSA is one of three government agencies that have no operational pandemic plans in place.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

AFGE should give it a rest. They are always blowing minor things out of proportion. They should focus their efforts on getting a better contract. The 2005 version expires later this year.

Anonymous said...

a bottle of hand sanitizer and a box of kleenex is not enough?

GO AFGE GO!

Anonymous said...

Actually, even though I am a local rep, I have to admit the union goes overboard on issues without regard to relative importance. You can't go from zero to 100 on every issue and maintain credibility on the really important issues. Right now, staffing is number one, and the contract is number two.

Anonymous said...

Staffing number one? I got news for you staffing is not the issue. That's the party line. Trust me we have plenty of SSA employees, what we lack is proper training. All of you who think staffing is the issue are in for a big surprise.