Postal workers plan anthrax lawsuit

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Mail handlers plan to ask for a complete shutdown of all postal facilities in anthrax-affected areas when they file a federal lawsuit in Miami next week, and they want the centers to remain closed until they can be thoroughly tested and fitted with anthrax safety equipment.

There was no immediate comment from the U.S. Postal Service.

The Miami area local of the American Postal Workers Union plans to ask a federal judge for "expedited arbitration" with the Postal Service to address grievances that have stemmed from a three-week series of anthrax-in-the-mail investigations and reports, according to a union representative and an attorney for the union.

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"Management has failed to take proactive measures and appears to be reacting only after anthrax-like systems appear, which creates apprehension and fear to postal workers and is detrimental to their health, welfare and safety," says the lawsuit, which union representative Judy Johnson said will be filed Monday.

Union attorney Neil Flaxman said the only result from being reactive rather than proactive is that "people die."

Johnson told reporters that postal employees believe Washington workers handling government mail have been treated better than their Florida, New York and New Jersey counterparts.

They want widespread testing, monitoring and protection for postal workers around the country -- and they want scanners and bacteria-detectors installed in facilities in New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Florida and the District of Columbia, Johnson said.

The union representative said mail could be handled in facilities outside those areas while the retrofitting takes place, and added the cost would probably be between $50 million and $100 million -- far less, she said, than the amount of money given to the airline industry in the wake of the September 11 terror attacks.

The work could be wrapped up in a week, said Johnson and Flaxman.

Details of how the arbitration would work were limited, but Johnson said the union wanted someone from the CDC involved in the process. Johnson also said that postal workers unions in New York and New Jersey had asked to join the lawsuit, but CNN was not able to immediately confirm that claim.