MY WORK IS KILLING ME!!!

           Is your work killing you? In all probability the answer is yes. Every year across the country people are killed just trying to earn their bread. “Accidents” at work usually happen because of attempts to save time and/or money, health and safety is circumvented with disastrous results. Last year in this country almost 200 people were killed at work and it is across the full spectrum of occupations. In agriculture 34 workers were killed, in construction, 50, manufacturing, 27, service industry, 47, and waste & re-cycling, the number was 9, on top of that, 68 members of the public were killed in work related accidents.

         These tragic figures are those that happen in the work place and are easily identified, but a far more insidious form of death from earning your bread and a far higher number of workers deaths come later in life. These deaths are related to what materials you work with and where you work.

        Take one disease that we are all familiar with, cancer, it is difficult to find a material that if we are exposed to it, will not translate into cancer. This list is from the UK, Health and Safety Executive:

• Leukaemia (other than chronic lymphatic leukaemia) or cancer of the bone, female breast, testis or thyroid due to exposure to electromagnetic radiation or ionising particles (disease number A1)
• Acute non-lymphatic leukaemia due to exposure to benzene (C7).
• Skin cancer due to exposure to arsenic, arsenic compounds, tar, pitch, bitumen, mineral oil (including paraffin) or soot (C21).
• Sinonasal cancer due to exposure to nickel compounds (C22a) or due to exposure to wood, leather and fibre board dust (D6).
• Lung cancer due to exposure to nickel compounds (C22b) or due to work as a tin miner, exposure to bis(chloromethyl) ether, or to zinc, calcium or strontium chromates (D10) or due to silica exposure (D11).
• Bladder cancer due to exposure various compounds during chemical manufacturing or processing, including 1-naphthylamine, 2-naphthylamine, benzidine, auramine, magenta, 4-aminobiphenyl, MbOCA, orthotoluidine, 4-chloro-2-methylaniline, and coal tar pitch volatiles produced in aluminium smelting (C23).
• Angiosarcoma of the Liver due to exposure to vinyl chloride monomer (C24).
• Mesothelioma (D3).
• Asbestos related lung cancer (lung cancer with asbestosis (D8) or lung cancer with evidence of at least 5-years asbestos exposure before 1975 in certain jobs (D8A))

        All this information is known but how often are people at work, and the public, exposed to one or a combination of several of these substances unnecessarily? In this society, health and safety of workers moves much slower than the information is made public, health and safety cost companies money and that is not on their agenda. The dangers from asbestos were known back in the 30's, medical papers had been written detailing the effects, but as a young man working in the Clyde shipbuilding industry in the 50's, I worked in conditions where asbestos was widely used and liberally thrown about. The powers that be had the information, we the workers didn't, asbestos was cheap and efficient, workers can always be replaced, so its use was continued. To this day, the workers of this country are still reaping the disastrous result in deaths from mesothelioma. In the UK approximately 12,000 deaths a year are work related.

        As long as production is for profit and not for needs, the health and safety of the workers will be a secondary matter. No person should be expected to risk their life just to earn their daily bread, no person should suffer a slow linger death because of being employed by someone who wanted to make a fortune at other people's expense. Sadly that is the way we live today, it is called capitalism, profit for the few at the expense of the many, profit is God, workers are cheap. 

WHEN THE TIME-BOMB GOES OFF.

The bike just sits there,

dust covering its lovely sheen,

puffing up the Fintry Hills

well, it’s no longer my scene.

Y’see, as a Clydeside apprentice

I proudly learnt the tradesman’s skill,

little did I know then

the price, asbestos lungs that kill.

Now I just sit here through the painful day

gasping each mouthful of air, wondering

how can I make the bastards pay.

They new it was a killer

a time-bomb in our lungs

but, because it was so quick and cheap

they firmly held their tongues.

So what, if it cost the workman’s life,

there’s always a couple of new workers

in the care of the worker’s wife.

Please try to understand my anger

as I and others bear their cost,

a slow death from asbestos lungs,

a vibrant life lost.

Anguish for family and friends,

all in the name of profit;

now that really does offend.

Our anger without direction

is a blind archer behind the bow,

we have to use our anger

to smash the status-quo.

ann arky's home.