An Italian military personnel wearing a protective gets ready to take care of a pretended Ebola victim during a specialized training course for the management and transport of highly contagious patients, in Rome’s Pratica di Mare military airport in Pomezia on September 24, 2014. (Filippo Monteforte/AFP/Getty Images)

The international labor union SEIU says it has “real concerns about the safety of cleaning crews and other people who work at airports, such as wheelchair agents.”

The union’s Occupational Health and Safety Director Mark Catlin told Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson that beyond the primary concern for health care workers providing direct care to possible Ebola patients, he is also thinking about the safety of cleaning crews in airplanes and at airports, and even laundering companies that clean hospital bedding and uniforms.

“What’s really been missing [from the discussion] is the fact that it’s employers in this country under our U.S. law — under the Occupational Safety and Health Act — that have the primary responsibility to maintain a healthy and safe workplace,” Catlin said. “So it’s the employers’ responsibility to take the CDC guidance, mandatory requirements by federal OSHA and other agencies and incorporate those into site-specific plans for how workers are going to be protected, the protocols they are going to follow and how they’re going to be trained and how they’re going to get the equipment – like the personal protective equipment – that they need.”

Guest

• Mark Catlin, occupational health and safety director at SEIU.