The global union body, speaking out ahead of the 28 April
International Workers’ Memorial Day, says this preventable waste of life must
end and has a stern warning for rogue employers: “If you expose us, we’ll
expose you.”
Sharan
Burrow, ITUC General Secretary, said, “Even conservative estimates put the
annual occupational cancer toll at 660,000 deaths a year. A poisonous cocktail
of toxic marketing and regulatory failure has already condemned another
generation to an early grave.”
“As
long as there’s money to be made, industry will retain its fatal attachment to
some of the most potent killers in history,” Burrow notes. “For example, next
month it is all but certain that just enough governments will dance to the
asbestos industry’s tune to keep chrysotile asbestos off the toxic exports list
included in a key United Nations treaty.”
“This
is a typical example of an industry protecting its markets without regard to
the human consequences. Global asbestos production is not falling, and in some
countries, including India, Indonesia and Brazil, consumption has increased.”
Benzene
is another industry favourite with over half a century of evidence establishing
a clear cancer link. Yet the biggest names in petrochemicals – British
Petroleum (BP), Chevron, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Shell Chemical – all
contributed to major study that ran through most of the last decade, designed
to head off cancer compensation claims and to protect their valuable product
from tighter regulation.
“Wherever
stricter controls are proposed, industry representatives or their hired guns
appear, challenging the science and predicting an economic catastrophe,” Burrow
says. “Whether it is silica or diesel exhaust, dyes or metals, or the
endocrine-disrupting chemicals linked to breast cancers and reproductive
problems, alternatives are not being used and controls are not being employed
or adequately enforced.”
This
year on 28 April, the international campaign day when unions pledge to
“remember the dead, and fight for the living”, the harm caused by workplace
toxins is being put under the spotlight. A new ITUC guide, ‘Toxic work – stop
deadly exposures today’ ( http://www.ituc-csi.org/toxic-work-stop-deadly-exposures ) sets out how to remove toxic
exposures from the workplace. At the centre of the union strategy is active,
union-supported workforce participation, in finding problems and implementing
solutions.
According
to Burrow: “There is nothing inevitable about exposure to toxins at work. Over
40 countries, including all those in the European Union, function without
asbestos with no negative impacts. Why shouldn’t workers in India, Brazil or
Sri Lanka be afforded the same protection, the same respect for their health?
“Some
of the world’s most profitable companies are not just defending their toxic
products, they are defending weak exposure standards that mean they profit and
you pay. It is not ethical, it is not healthy and it is not what we bargained
for. We make this pledge: if they expose us, we will expose them.”
1.
Statistics are included in a new ITUC-supported workplace cancer website,www.cancerhazards.org ,
which provides union representatives and others with the latest news on
occupational cancer, including emerging scientific evidence and union
initiatives to combat occupational causes of cancer.
2.
Online campaign resources are available: ITUC occupational health and safety http://www.ituc-csi.org/OHS and 28 April
activities (http://28april.org/ )
‘Toxic work – stop deadly exposures today’ (http://www.ituc-csi.org/toxic-work-stop-deadly-exposures )
The
ITUC represents 176 million workers in 162 countries and territories and has
328 national affiliates.
Follow
us on the web: http://www.ituc-csi.org and http://www.youtube.com/ITUCCSI
For
more information, please contact the ITUC Press Department on: +32 2 224 02 04
Anabella Rosemberg
OHS-Environment-Sustainable Development
________________________________
International Trade Union
Confederation (ITUC)
Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD
(TUAC)