Word: sicked
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...basket of symptoms with no clear cause," as one expert termed it, sick-building syndrome can confine itself to one office or spread through an entire building. Some workers will get it; others won't. Symptoms are usually confined to the workplace, but in some cases, like Polansky's, they can hang on for years, even after a worker has left a building. According to Dr. Claudia Miller of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, repeated exposure to toxins given off by molds and bacteria may hypersensitize people to the point that they react to even...
Despite these expert reviews, Southwest maintains that the company is the victim of a litigious campaign inspired by Houston immunotoxicologist Andrew Campbell, who first diagnosed sick-building syndrome in Polansky and 12 of her co-workers in 1994. Campbell, they say, is a biased observer, known for diagnosing sick-building syndrome and other maladies based on what the airline says is questionable evidence...
Though some supervisors at the center are said to be sick themselves, employees say these managers have participated in the cover-up. One employee says that her supervisor helped her rewrite her resignation letter, allegedly instructing her to say she "loved the company and was leaving because I wanted to retire," rather than state the real reason, which was her health. That way, she would be able to come back to work if she wanted to. The airline says it knows nothing of this...
...appears to be a key factor in a widespread reluctance among staff members to speak openly about the problem. Many of the center's employees are working mothers afraid of being stranded, like Polansky, without company medical insurance. A 56-year-old male employee, who says he has been sick since he went to work for Southwest in 1992, consulted with his union representative and decided not to speak to TIME on the record; he was afraid going public would get him fired...
Except through the lawsuits that have been filed, most of the sick remain silent; $20 an hour is hard to find in San Antonio, not to mention profit sharing. "We went over the billion-dollar mark [in revenues] in June of this year," says a long-term employee who has the full array of symptoms, including memory loss and "a thing on my leg." It's "bigger than a silver dollar now," she says. "I just wish they knew how many people in this building are sick...