Ex-Deutsche site worker: Boss said no to asbestos gear

[RamboLiberal]

Source: NY Daily News

An asbestos worker at the former Deutsche Bank building told the Daily News she quit her job at the unsafe, underprotected site after her boss berated her for wearing an asbestos mask to protect herself.

Helen Rocos was one of a handful of handpicked workers chosen for the lucrative job of searching for human bone fragments amid gravel on the roof of the toxic 130Liberty St. in spring 2006.

She said she and other employees were assured the roof had been cleaned of asbestos, so they wore ordinary work clothes as they shoveled stones and pawed through the roof debris to find the remains of those killed on 9/11.

"They told us they got rid of the asbestos, but as I'm digging, I'm thinking, 'How did they magically get rid of the asbestos, but still leave all this healthy dirt behind?'" said Rocos, 57, a tough-talking certified asbestos handler with haz-mat training.



Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2007/08/27/2007-08-27_exdeutsche_site_worker_boss_said_no_to_a-4.html

[madrchsod]

1. sounds like a torch job to me

same kind of thing happened near here. a large highly contaminated industrial site`s building were in the process of being torn down when after a few months the building "caught fire" and the contractor walked away. the site still has`t been cleaned up...

[Trillo]

2. Another lying employer.

A dime a dozen.

I wonder if the vast majority of employees care that their labor keeps these liars in profit? (If you don't make your employer more money than they pay you, you will soon be out of work -- so by working for a liar, you "reward" their lies)

Do you suppose that most employees are just happy to have a job, any job, so much so that a lying employer is of no concern?

Helen Rocos figured it out.

[Javaman]

3. thieves logic...

No asbestos = job gets done at minimal cost to them (although long term cost is people with lung cancer, but by that point, they are out of the loop)

Asbestos = cost over runs and they don't make a cent.

See how it works?

[RamboLiberal]

4. 3 at FDNY Reassigned After Deadly Fire - Smoking Blamed as Cause

Three senior fire officials responsible for inspecting the condemned skyscraper where two firefighters died were stripped of their commands and reassigned Monday, and the Fire Department ordered intensive inspections of buildings under demolition.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg also announced that a preliminary investigation indicated that careless smoking by construction workers started the deadly Aug. 18 fire at the former Deutsche Bank building, which was heavily damaged in the Sept. 11 attacks and was being dismantled and cleaned of toxic debris floor by floor.

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After the fire, the department acknowledged that it did not have a plan in place to fight fire at the tower and that it had not inspected the building's standpipe system, which connects fire hoses to its water supply, in over a year, even though it should have done so every 15 days. Inspectors found pieces of the standpipe disconnected in the tower's basement.

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The reassigned deputy chief had received a memo more than two years earlier that included recommendations for how to fight a fire in the contaminated skyscraper, the New York Post reported Monday. The memo recommended that if a fire broke out, just one officer and two firefighters should go into the building to investigate and evaluate the situation.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=3528746