Bad Blood At The Red Cross

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

Bad blood is more than a metaphor at the American Red Cross. Hundreds of workers demonstrated outside national Red Cross headquarters under the blistering afternoon sun yesterday to expose the aid agency's poor treatment of both its workers and the nation's blood supply. The Red Cross has been “reprimanded numerous times for their unacceptable policies," one demonstrator told Union City, "yet this organization continues to turn a blind eye to their mistreatment of their workers and the mismanagement of their blood supply." The picketers - delegates to this week's OPEIU convention in DC - carried signs reading “Tell the American Red Cross: Qualified Staff Means A Safe Blood Supply!” to protest their “extreme dissatisfaction” with the aid agency.  The Red Cross “refuses to adhere to staffing requirements and workers’ rights,” said another demonstrator, adding that the agency has been under Congressional decree for over 15 years “with no sign of improvement.” Frank Hornick - a business representative for SEIU - said, “These issues lead to the dangerous distribution of untested - or ‘bad’ - blood, which many times has not even been tested for diseases such as syphilis.”  The leadership of the Red Cross needs to “either change now or leave,” said OPEIU Local 459 Business Representative Joe Marutiak, noting that the Red Cross has been fined over 16 million dollars in the last week alone for mismanagement of distributed blood. Click here to watch video coverage of the demonstration on Youtube. – report/photo by Boaz Young-El; video by Jack Arlook, AFL-CIO Union Summer Interns