OPINION: We need to work together to combat the opioid crisis and address workplace mental health

By KEVIN FITZGERALD
Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1
Retiree

Organized Labor unionists have always understood the idea that the collective can approach a dilemma stronger than the individual. To that end, in that spirit, we face many social problems outside of our individual organization’s concerns.

On Sept. 18 my union, Heat and Frost Insulators Local 1, paid for a table at the MO Network Trivia event. We filled the table with union members who care about others: Don Willey, retired business manager of Laborers Local 110; Glenn Farmer, of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562 and his wife Sonja; Brian Stiens, of Glaziers Local 513: Dr. John Gaal, director of Workforce Wellness/Missouri Workers Initiative of the AFL-CIO and his wife Mary; Mike Marquardt, Teamster Local 688 organizer; and me. We spent the afternoon, and a bit of our money, to support MO Network.

WHAT MO NETWORK DOES
MO Network (www.monetwork.org) confronts our addiction crisis with a community center at 4022 S. Broadway in St. Louis, offering recovery, support, acceptance, reform, and more….all based in Harm Reduction philosophy/practice that provides:

• Evidence-based life-saving services to individuals who are not ready to arrest their use.
• A noncoercive self-empowering approach. Individuals who are engaged with this approach are five times more likely to go to treatment.
• Peer support services, family support, social activities and true community involvement.
• Free mental health pharmacotherapy and counseling.
• Free healthcare and wound care, including antibiotics and general wellness including buprenorphine induction, which is used to treat pain as well as addiction to narcotic pain relievers.

(For more information on MO Network call 844-REBEL UP [732-3587])

SEVEN TIMES MORE LIKELY TO DIE OF OVERDOSE
Due to many factors, including work culture, injury and stress, construction workers are seven times more likely to die of an opioid overdose than other workers.

“Mental health issues in the United States are in crisis and need greater understanding and increased emphasis from Labor and employers to find ways to help workers whose jobs are more stressful than ever,” stressed Dr. Gaal.

Mental/economic health, substance use, and suicide are entwined. We cannot approach them separately. We need to work together.

Hopefully, we did that at this event in a fun, educational atmosphere.

I appreciate all who joined our table. I appreciate MO Network for their tireless, selfless work. Our overdose dilemma affects so many, destroying lives and families. It is a disease, recognized as such by the CDC, much if not most of all, brought on by the greed of our pharmaceutical companies.

We need to work together.