Source: United States Senator for Missouri Roy Blunt
WASHINGTON – Today, U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.), a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Josh Hawley (Mo.) sent a letter to the General Services Administration (GSA) regarding oversight failures of the Goodfellow Federal Center, in St. Louis, Mo., which exposed workers and a childcare facility to “widespread, longstanding” contaminants including asbestos, lead, mercury, arsenic and explosive materials. A report from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch found that GSA officials “deliberately misled tenants about the well-documented health risks at the Goodfellow Federal Center in north St. Louis.”
As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Blunt secured $45.8 million in FY2021 funding legislation to support the Goodfellow facility relocation in St. Louis. In June 2020, Blunt welcomed the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s decision to relocate more than 1,000 employees to downtown St. Louis from the Goodfellow facility.
“In a letter from the U.S. Office of Special Council (OSC) to President Biden, that office reported that officials knew about these contaminations since at least 2002,” the senators wrote. “The OSC letter also states that officials did not take substantial action to notify workers or tenant agencies of the dangers and that officials issued overtly misleading communications to employees that exhibited a ‘pattern of suppressing or downplaying risks.’”
“Federal officials should be providing proper oversight and protection for workers, not ignoring worker safety. At a bare minimum, Missouri workers deserve a safe work environment and honest stewardship from supervisors and their government officials,” the senators continued.
In addition to requesting proper federal oversight, Blunt and Hawley requested answers to the following questions:
- What is your office doing to assist workers at the Goodfellow Federal Center who have been exposed to dangerous or toxic materials?
- What is your plan to ensure workers at the Goodfellow Federal Center do not suffer financial harm, loss of employment, unreasonable relocation standards, or any other financial burden resulting from facility changes or facility closure efforts?
- What are you doing to discipline officials in your office who misled, attempted to downplay, or hid the dangerous working conditions for employees at the Goodfellow Federal Center? Please include a list of all disciplinary actions take thus far.
- What plan does your office have to ensure better oversight strategies and management policies for facilities which have been reported to have dangerous working conditions?
- How is your office planning to ensure that claims of unsafe workplaces are properly investigated in light of the recent findings at the Goodfellow Federal Center?
Click here to read the full letter.