In one vote on Dec. 9, senators refused to even start debate on legislation to permanently pay the medical bills for Fire Fighters, police, building trades workers and others permanently ill or dying from rare cancers, emphysema and other ailments they contracted by exposure to toxic chemicals, flaming jet fuel; flying asbestos and parti-culates swirling around their work on “The Pile,” the remains of the World Trade Center.

Among those suffering in the 9-plus years since the attacks are “Fire Fighters, rescue workers, responders, police officers and EMTs, U.S. military personnel, construction workers, cleanup workers, residents, area workers, and schoolchildren,” one New York City IAFF local reports. Dozens of Fire Fighters and 31 police officers have died of their 9-11-caused ailments since the attacks.

In the other vote, the senators refused to start debate on legislation overturning state bans on collective bargaining with public safety workers, even though the workers would be barred from striking.

Both pieces of legislation were top causes of the Fire Fighters, with other unions joining them in the campaign. Backers of both were outraged and vowed to try to get them through the Senate before the present lame-duck session of Congress ends.

Both laws, which passed the House with bipartisan support, affect thousands of workers nationwide. The medical aid bill would cover 71,000 workers and 38,000 other people living at or near “Ground Zero,” Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said.

One, she noted, is a divisional fire chief from Menlo Park, Calif., who flew cross country to help his Fire Fighter colleagues dig for the remains of the 343 New York Fire Fighters killed when the Twin Towers crashed to the ground. Frank Fraone worked 16-hour days at “The Pile” and now suffers increasingly disabling respiratory diseases he contracted there, the senator said.

“Living out here in California, I cannot get confirmation or talk face-to-face with anyone affiliated with [9/11] health issues,” Fraone wrote her. “I do not know to this date if I am going to be covered for my health concerns. What happens when this health issue disables me and I can no longer work or care for my family?”

Except for Mike Enzi, R-Wyo., the Senate Labor Committee’s top Republican, no Republicans defended their successful filibuster threats against either measure. Enzi claimed, in a New York Daily News op-ed, the present medical program for ailing first responders lacks accountability – a claim both the paper and union leaders dismissed.

The rest of the Republicans let it be known that they would block anything and everything until the Senate approved extending tax cuts for the rich. As a result, the votes were 57-42 on the medical program bill and 55-43 on the collective bargaining rights legislation. Backers needed 60 votes to avoid the filibuster.

Fire Fighters President Harold Schaitberger, who had led a Dec. 7 rally for both bills, scoffed at the GOP reasoning. He also vowed to keep IAFF pushing for the medical aid legislation through the end of the session. Other union leaders agreed.

“The actions by GOP senators effectively derailed our efforts on collective bargaining. It’s a sad day in America when the rights of Fire Fighters are ignored in favor of tax breaks for millionaires,” said Schaitberger. He was even more incensed by the vote against the medical aid.

The Republicans “prevented funding for existing medical monitoring and treatment programs for people at the World Trade Center on 9/11 or involved with the cleanup at Ground Zero who have suffered illnesses from the toxic dust and debris. Our New York City locals have done everything they could to get this bill through Congress, but the partisan gridlock and the decision by the Republican delegation in the Senate to say ‘no’ to everything except tax breaks has left Fire Fighters and the living victims of 9/11 empty handed.”

Richard Alles, legislative director for IAFF Local 854, one of two New York City locals that lost members in the al-Qaida destruction of the Twin Towers, told the Daily News he would lobby four GOP senators – Mark Kirk of Illinois, Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Alaskan Lisa Murkowski – to switch their votes.

AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka called both pro-filibuster votes cheap political tricks and “manipulation of (the) middle class.”

“By standing in the way of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, Republican senators are continuing to deny basic rights on the job to Fire Fighters on the front lines who keep communities safe,” he said in a prepared statement.

And blocking the medical aid bill “denies long-term care and monitoring for the heroes who answered our nation\'s call on Sept. 11. These votes mark a new low for Senate Republicans. Sadly, millions of working people will pay the price for these cheap political tactics,” Trumka added.

Press Associates, Inc. (PAI)