Downtown Postal Workers rally seeking approval of
life-saving defibrillators

From the Minneapolis Labor Review, June 24, 2011

By Steve Share, Minneapolis Labor Review editor

MINNEAPOLIS — Postal Worker Art Tilson died on the job June 9, 2009 at the downtown Minneapolis Post Office of sudden cardiac arrest. Fellow employees trained to do so performed CPR but the workplace had no Automatic External Defibrillator (AED) on hand — a device that could have saved Tilson’s life. Two years later, on the anniversary of his death, several dozen members of the American Postal Workers Union rallied across the street from the Post Office — still seeking approval for the installation of life-saving AEDs that could prevent future deaths like Tilson’s.

“We’ve been on this issue for two years now,” said Bruce Johnson, a 20-year APWU member. “Every day we wonder if someone else is going to go down and not go home.”

The union has worked with local USPS management to request permission for a pilot program to equip the building with AEDs, but so far the regional USPS bureaucracy has not responded.

At the June 9 rally on the second anniversary of Tilson’s death, APWU members were joined by members of the Minnesota Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivor Network — “over 200 survivors all saved by AEDs,” reported the group’s president, Gene Johnson (no relation to Bruce Johnson).

Each AED costs about $1,200, Gene Johnson said. “We’ve calculated a dozen for this building,” he said, where about 500 employees work each of three shifts a day.

“With 12 ‘defibs,’ they can get to every employee in four minutes — that’s the ideal,” Gene Johnson said.

He said his organization plus others would donate the 12 AEDs needed and provide free training to workers at the Post Office.

 “People have offered to donate them,” APWU’s Bruce Johnson said. “We just can’t get them in the door. It’s almost Kafkaesque.”

USPS facilities in other regions do have AEDs available, Bruce Johnson said.

APWU member Greg Danner was a friend of Art Tilson’s. “He and I always used to talk baseball,” he recalled.

“You always knew where you stood with Art,” Danner said. “He was honest. He was a hard worker… I watched him die in front of me… You hate to see good people die from things that can be prevented.”

In the two years since Tilson died, another two or three workers at the downtown Minneapolis Post Office have suffered heart attacks, Danner said. Fortunately, none died. “If they wait another two or three years, they might not be as fortunate.”

Dave Eide, an APWU steward, also remembers Art Tilson. “I used to visit him when he was out there on the floor.”

After Tilson’s death, Eide joined the facility’s safety and health committee and received CPR training.

Eide said: “My big concern as a first responder… if they call me and I have to respond to an incident, I don’t feel I have the tools I need. I’d like to have an AED in my toolkit.”

The union has contacted OSHA about whether AEDs can be mandated. “They suggest you have one but it’s not required,” Bruce Johnson said.

Several dozen members of the American Postal Workers Union, joined by the Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors Network, rallied outside the downtown Minneapolis Post Office June 9, urging placement of life-saving defibrillators in the workplace.

APWU member Greg Danner (left) and Gene Johnson, president of the Minnesota Sudden Cardiac Arrest Survivors Network (right), display an AED. Johnson said his organization and others would donate the 12 AEDs needed at the downtown Minneapolis Post Office — and provide free training.

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