Occupational Safety & Health
Workers health is determined by conditions of workplace and access to health services besides social and individual factors. Workplace related hazards, accidents and diseases unjustly penalize workers. There is a wide gap in the availability of effective interventions to prevent occupational hazards and to protect and promote health at the workplace.
Struggle for health and occupational safety standards at the workplace
Various unions and workers’ organisations are struggling for implementation of health and occupational safety standards at the workplace to protect them from working under hazardous conditions. Workplace related hazards, accidents and diseases unjustly penalize workers most of whom do not receive any compensation or medical attention from employers or the state. In India there is no single legislation to address health and occupational safety issues. Article 42 of the Constitution states that “The State shall make provision for securing just and humane conditions of work and for maternity relief.” Articles 24 and 39 (e & f) also address this issue especially with respect to child labour. Most corporates list responsiblity for workers’ and local communities’ wellbeing and quality of life in their corporate social responsibility manifestos. However, neither comapnies nor governments have seriously addressed these issues. It is imperative that these issues are addressed in order to protect workers’ health, safety and welfare (physical, mental and social well being), as well as that of nearby communities and the public that may be impacted by the workplace practices as is evident from the struggles of our affiliates.
Unilever and Mercury Poisoning in Kodaikanal, TN
In 1984 the multinational consumer company Ponds set up a thermometer factory in Kodaikanal, Tamil Nadu, by transporting a dismantled plant from Watertown in the US. In 1997 Hindustan Lever Limited (presently known as Hindustan Unilever Limited), a subsidiary of Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch consumer-care firm acquired the thermometer plant as part of Unilever’s global acquisition of Ponds. In 2001 Greenpeace and Palani Hills Conservation Council (PHCC) uncovered and brought into the public domain the severity of HUL’s acts of toxic dumping.
Over the course of its functioning, the factory in Kodaikanal exposed its workers to the hazardous substance mercury and also released tons of mercury waste into its surroundings. Mercury is best known for its use in thermometers but it has nearly 3000 industrial uses such as in paints and industrial instruments. Mercury is a neurotoxin and it can damage the brain, heart, kidney, and liver. Workers of the thermometer factory were not warned of the hazardous nature of mercury, nor were they given any protective gear. At least 19 workers from the factory have died till date. Faced with the inability to work and massive medical expenses, several workers and their families are confronting destitution. The company refuses to come to the aid of those poisoned by it, and is delaying clean up to international standards.
On 25 February 2008, the Office Bearers of All India Council of Unilever Unions on being informed about the present pathetic condition of the Ex-workers and their families of Kodaikanal factory discussed this issue and unanimously decided to support the struggle of Kodaikanal workers & their families and passed a Resolution to work “jointly with the Ex-Workers of Kodaikanal for getting them Justice and compensation to the mercury affected workers & their families from the Hindustan Unilever Management.”
Workers of the stone quarrying industry in New Delhi faced similar challenges and after mounting a long and vigorous struggle they have achieved partial redressal of their grievances.
Stone Quarrying Companies and Silicosis in Lal Kuan, New Delhi
Silicosis is a hazardous substance that is used in wide ranging industries such as construction, stone cutting, glass manufacturing, mining, agriculture, shipbuilding, ceramics, clay and pottery; railroad, and manufacture of soaps & detergents. Exposure to silica causes scarring of the lung tissue reducing the ability of the lungs to extract oxygen from the air we breathe.
Lal Kuan area in New Delhi was home to nearly 300 stone quarrying companies before they were shut down in 1992 by a Supreme Court order in response to a public interest litigation filed by a lawyer M. C. Mehta. The stone quarrying companies employed through contractors and subcontractors thousands of migrant workers from rural areas of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, and Madhya Pradesh. Most workers belonged to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Castes. People’s Rights and Social Action Research group working amongst these former workers discovered a high incidence of respiratory illnesses such as silicosis, tuberculosis and silico-tuberculosis. Dozens of workers had died premature deaths and hundreds were confronting severe health problems, inability to work and high medical expenses.
As in the Unilever case, stone crushers of Lal Kuan were not informed about the hazards of silica exposure, nor were they given any protective gear or health care facilities to monitor their health. Health care professionals misdiagnose the illness for years both out of ignorance and also because an acknowledgement of the disease would entail fixing responsibility of safety standards on the stone quarrying companies and the Delhi Government’s Labour Department.
However through their vigorous struggle workers were successful in persuading the National Human Rights Commission to:
- Recommend the setting up of a national task force on silicosis
- Order the Union Health Minister, Union Labour Minister, Labour Commissioner, the Delhi Government and the Pollution Control Department to respond to the complaints and submit and action taken report
- Direct States identified with high cases of Silicosis to map and monitor the incidence of Silicosis
- Issue notices under Section 85 of the Factories Act 1948 to bring enterprises employing less than 10 labourers under the purview of the Act.
In 2005 the Delhi Government:
- Set up a dedicated hospital for occupational diseases near Lal Kuan
- Ordered a health survey to be conducted in the area by the Centre for Occupational and Environmental Health, Maulana Azad Medical College, Delhi
- Agreed to explore the possibility of giving compensation to the affected workers under the Workmen’s Compensation Act
A PIL was also filed in the Supreme Court of India and on 26 March 2006 an order was issued to the Ministries of Labour, Health and Company & Law and to State governments to form a Committee to formulate national guidelines for prevention of dust exposure in stone quarries.
However, a recent report endorsed by thirteen unions and workers organisations documents the efforts of the Government of India and the asbestos industry lobby to undermine workers health and safety in the asbestos industry by commissioning a doctored study on the hazards of asbestos.
Asbestos is a hazardous substance that is used in the manufacture numerous products such as cement boards, roofing, cement pipes, vehicle brake linings, conduits for electrical cables and textiles. All six types of asbestos, and especially white asbestos (chrysotile variety that comprises over 95% of the asbestos used today) has been declared to be extremely hazardous by governments of 40 countries, several independent scientists and many international agencies such as the ILO, WTO, WHO, and the International Commission on Occupational Health. Exposure to asbestos increases risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma (a kind of cancer that affects the protective lining that covers most of the body’s internal organs).
Nearly 100,000 workers in India face occupational exposure to asbestos. In India the occupational exposure limits to all kinds of asbestos in the work environment is much higher at 2 f/cc, where as in rest of the world it is between 0.1 f/cc-0.5f/cc. Asbestos mining and milling activity in India is concentrated in Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan Bihar, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Manipur but asbestos mining is currently banned in India so it imports nearly 90% of its asbestos requirements, primarily from Canada, Brazil and the US. Workers handle the asbestos without any protective gear and are not informed of its dangers either.
Like the production of mercury, production of asbestos has been declining in the US and Europe while it has been rising in Asian countries, doubling in Asia between 1970 and 1995. The Ministry of Mines has recently indicated that it is considering lifting the asbestos mining ban. The reality is that most of the asbestos companies are either owned by politicians or by state governments. The Ministry claims that state and central health agencies are also in favour of lifting the ban. To support this stand, the Government of India commissioned a study in 2004 from the National Institute of Occupational Health (NIOH), a premier research institute under the Indian Council of Medial Research (ICMR). The study was designed to give scientific credence to justify India’s stand that white asbestos is safe and should be kept out of the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) list of the Rotterdam Convention. The PIC is a mechanism to regulate trade of hazardous substances and facilitate Governments to assess risks of handling and using hazardous substances and to make informed decisions. The study was compromised from the start. The government accepted partial sponsorship by the Asbestos Cement Product Manufacturers Association; did not involve trade unions and public health experts; did not address severe methodological problems and kept the study’s findings secret. Some documents obtained by activists under the RTI have brought these issues to the fore.
These cases highlight several issues about:
- Labour standards and workers health and occupational safety practices
- Corporate responsibility
- State responsibility
- Export of pollution and unsafe work conditions from developed to developing countries; from the US and Europe to Asian countries
NTUI views the health services for workers at three levels: public health system (PHS), ESI and OHS and struggles for a health policy that develops the three levels and integrates them in a comprehensive manner. We need to build pressure on the government to ensure that all components of health systems are involved in an integrated response to the specific health needs of working populations and that the workplace also serves as a setting for delivery of other essential public-health interventions, and for health promotion. NTUI intends to organise workers on the axis of workers health.