ROME - Every day, in Italy, three people die at work and 27 remain permanently disabled. In 2007 the white dead, according to data of Inail were about 1,200 and over 800 thousand invalids. Data included by Anmil - the National Association of the maimed and disabled of work - during the National Day 58th for victims of accidents at work, which is celebrated today. Figures which demonstrate the seriousness of the phenomenon, one of the leading causes of death and with "almost twice as many deaths compared with the murders."
One day, stressing Anmil to draw the attention of institutions, social forces and the media on this issue. But even when "to denounce the tragic living conditions" of the disabled and survivors of victims ", for which you must stop the drift towards assistenzialistic which the system is pushing in recent years." One need only think about the fact that a widow receives on average a pension of just 700 euros per month. "To the Anmil, at the same time, however, must" be a shared commitment by all to curb the phenomenon of accidents at work, with a true and responsible application of standards for prevention, both by companies and employees "
The President of the Republic, Giorgio Napolitano, sent to the president of the National maimed and disabled in the workplace, Peter Mercandelli, a message that says: "I wish to express my deep appreciation for the continuing voluntary commitment to prevention in the workplace And the protection of injured workers, families of victims and public awareness. The alarming figures from Anmil and the same tragic stories of recent days confirm what is the crucial issue of prevention at work. It was naturally raised an outraged 'enough', sincerely share, in the face of tragedies that, by their size, raise the clamor of the media and the involvement of public opinion. "
"The daily reality - added the Head of State - we re cases dramatic (even repetitive in their dynamics), personal and family stories of pain and suffering that your group, along with many other expressions of volunteerism and institutions, helps deal with a commitment of solidarity that is fair to recognize and exploit. There is undoubtedly also a problem of resources is crucial to qualify those available because it invests in training and information, is vigorously pursuing the goal of killing accident at work, reinforce the protection of workers and support the families of the victims at work. "
The President of the Republic has concluded by saying: "Of particular significance assume the many initiatives promoted in schools for a more direct statement of conscience by young people around the world of work. It 'must keep alive the attention to the problem, demordere nell'allarme not on its severity social, implement and improve legislation. E 'is a goal of civilization that we have to sacrifice many of the soldiers killed, maimed and disabled at work. "
For the Government was the Minister of Labor, Maurizio Sacconi: "Despite the statistics tell us that continue to fall fatal accidents at work, we must keep our guard than a phenomenon that has an intolerable in a modern country. We must look well to the characteristics of injuries - added the minister - that almost 60 per cent of accidents on the road recall all our responsibilities because there is greater safety on roads, as for people who exploit because of work, as we must look to the size of small business, agriculture, construction sites in particular those abusers are places of immanent danger to the health and safety. The real choice that we want to do is to raise the level of the very capacity of person to protect their health in the workplace. "
When a journalist asked him if we can increase controls on construction sites, the minister replied that "we can do even more by integrating the inspection capacity and central and local calling at the same time in the game, asking how the social partners with forms of collaboration between them that are already there and should be encouraged so that, next to the control of the institutions, there is also the cone of light provided by organizations representing workers and businesses "
The association Articolo21, which has promoted together with Cesare Damiano the "caravan for a safe," expresses deep gratitude to President Napolitano, who returns to hear his voice against that authentic on a daily basis which is eaten in many places work. "We hope - and Damiano Giulietti say - that this appeal is sought and that they really applied the rules that were highly desired by the Prodi government.
domenica 12 ottobre 2008
sabato 4 ottobre 2008
Bloody Thursday - 1934 West Coast waterfront strike
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, as well as a number of variations on these names) lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailors and a four-day general strike in San Francisco, and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States. The San Francisco General Strike, along with the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America, were important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Background
Longshoremen on the West Coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the coast, were required to go through a hiring hall operated by a company union, known as the "blue book" system for the color of the membership book.
The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s through their Maritime Workers Union. Their largest strike, in San Pedro, California in 1923, bottled up shipping in that harbor, but was crushed by a combination of injunctions, mass arrests and vigilantism by the American Legion. While the IWW was a spent force after that strike, syndicalist thinking remained popular on the docks. Longshoremen and sailors on the West Coast also had contacts with an Australian syndicalist movement that called itself the "One Big Union" formed after the defeat of a general strike there in 1917.
The Communist Party had also been active in the area in the late 1920s, seeking to organize all categories of maritime workers into a single union, the Maritime Workers Industrial Union (MWIU), as part of the drive during the Third Period to create revolutionary unions. The MWIU never made much headway on the West Coast, but it did attract a number of former IWW members and foreign-born militants, such as Harry Bridges, an Australian-born sailor who became a longshoreman after coming to the United States.
Those militants published a newspaper, "The Waterfront Worker", that focused on longshoremen's most pressing demands: more men on each gang, lighter loads and an independent union. While a number of the individuals in this group were Communist Party members, the group as a whole was independent of the party: although it criticized the International Seamen’s Union (ISU) as weak and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which had its base on the East Coast, as corrupt, it did not embrace the MWIU, but called instead for creation of small knots of activists at each port to serve as the first step in a slow, careful movement to unionize the industry.
Events soon made the MWIU wholly irrelevant. Just as the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act had led to a spontaneous explosion in union membership among coal miners in 1933, thousands of longshoremen now joined the fledgling ILA locals that reappeared on the West Coast. The MWIU faded away as party activists followed the mass of West Coast longshoremen into the ILA.
These newly emboldened workers first went after the "blue book" union, refusing to pay dues to it and tearing up their membership books. The militants who had published "The Waterfront Worker", now known as the "Albion Hall group" after their usual meeting place, continued organizing dock committees that soon began launching slowdowns and other types of job actions in order to win better working conditions. While the official leadership of the ILA remained in the hands of conservatives sent to the West Coast by President Joseph Ryan of the ILA, the Albion Hall group started in March, 1934 to press demands for a coastwide contract, a union-run hiring hall and an industrywide waterfront federation. When the conservative ILA leadership negotiated a weak "gentlemen's agreement" with the employers that had been brokered by the mediation board created by the Roosevelt Administration, Bridges led the membership in rejecting it.
The sticking point in the strike was recognition: the union demanded a closed shop, a coastwide contract and a union hiring hall. The employers offered to arbitrate the dispute, but insisted that the union agree to an open shop as a condition of any agreement to arbitrate. The longshoremen rejected the proposal to arbitrate.
The Big Strike
The strike began on May 9, 1934 as longshoremen in every West Coast port walked out; sailors joined them several days later. The employers recruited strikebreakers, housing them on moored ships or in walled compounds and bringing them to and from work under police protection. Strikers attacked the stockade housing strikebreakers in San Pedro on May 15; two strikers were shot and killed by the employers' private guards. Similar battles broke out in San Francisco and Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Strikers also succeeded in slowing down or stopping the movement of goods by rail out of the ports.
The Roosevelt Administration tried again to broker a deal to end the strike, but the membership twice rejected the agreements their leadership brought to them. The employers then decided to make a show of force to reopen the port in San Francisco. On Tuesday, July 3, fights broke out along the Embarcadero in San Francisco between police and strikers while a handful of trucks driven by young businessmen made it through the line.
Some Teamsters supported the strikers by refusing to handle "hot cargo" - goods which had been unloaded by strikebreakers though the Teamsters leadership was not as supportive. By the end of May Dave Beck, president of the Seattle Teamsters, and Mike Casey, president of those in San Francisco, thought the maritime strike had lasted too long. They encouraged the strikers to take what they could get from the employers and threatened to use Teamsters as strikebreakers if the ILA didn't return to work.
"Bloody Thursday"
After a quiet Fourth of July the employers' organization, the Industrial Association, tried to open the port even further on Thursday, July 5. As spectators watched from Rincon Hill, the police shot tear gas canisters into the crowd, then followed with a charge by mounted police. Picketers threw the canisters and rocks back at the police, who charged again, sending the picketers into retreat after a third assault. Each side then refortified and took stock.
Hostilities picked up again that afternoon, when a group of strikers surrounded a police car and attempted to tip it over. The police fired shotguns in the air, then fired their revolvers at the crowd. One of the policemen fired a shotgun into the crowd, killing a striking seaman and a strike sympathizer, Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry.
Strikers immediately cordoned off the area where two picketers had been shot, laying flowers and wreaths around it. Police arrived to remove the flowers and drive off the picketers minutes later. Once the police left, the strikers returned, replaced the flowers and stood guard over the spot.
As strikers carried wounded picketers into the ILA union hall police fired on the hall and lobbed tear gas canisters at nearby hotels. At this point someone reportedly called the union hall to ask "Are you willing to arbitrate now?"
Under orders from California Governor Frank Merriam, the California National Guard moved in that evening to patrol the waterfront. Similarly, federal soldiers of the United States Army stationed at the Presidio were placed on alert. The picketers pulled back, unwilling to take on armed soldiers in an uneven fight, and trucks and trains began moving without interference. Bridges asked the San Francisco Labor Council to meet that Saturday, July 7, to authorize a general strike. The Alameda County Central Labor Council in Oakland considered the same action. Teamsters in both San Francisco and Oakland voted to strike, over the objections of their leaders, on Sunday, July 8.
Funerals and general strike
The following day, several thousand strikers, families and sympathizers took part in a funeral procession down Market Street, stretching more than a mile and a half, for Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry, the two persons killed on "Bloody Thursday". The police were wholly absent from the scene. The march made an enormous impact on San Franciscans, making a general strike, which had formerly been "the visionary dream of a small group of the most radical workers . . . a practical and realizable objective." After dozens of Bay Area unions voted for a general strike over the next few days, the San Francisco Labor Council voted on July 14 to call a general strike. The Teamsters had already been out for two days by that point.
San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi declared a state of emergency. Some federal officials, particularly Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, were more skeptical. Roosevelt later recalled that some persons were urging him to steer the USS Houston, which was carrying him to Hawai'i, "into San Francisco Bay, all flags flying and guns double-shotted, and end the strike." Roosevelt rejected the suggestion.
The strike lasted four days. Non-union truck drivers joined the first day; the movie theaters and night clubs closed down. While food deliveries continued with the permission of the strike committee, many small businesses closed, posting signs in support of the strikers. Reports that unions in Portland and Seattle would also begin general strikes picked up currency
End of the strike
The calling of a general strike had an unexpected result: it gave the General Strike Committee, whose makeup was far less militant than the longshoremen's strike committee, effective control over the maritime strike itself. When the Labor Council voted to terminate the general strike it also recommended that the unions accept arbitration of all disputed issues. When the National Longshore Board put the employer's proposal to arbitrate to a vote of striking longshoremen, it passed in every port except Everett, Washington.
That, however, left the striking seamen in the lurch: the employers had refused to arbitrate with the ISU unless it first won elections on the fleets on strike. While Bridges, who had preached solidarity among all maritime workers and scorned arbitration, apologized to the seamen for the longshoremen's vote, the President of the ISU urged them to hold out and to burn their "fink books", the membership records of the company union to which they had been forced to pay dues.
On July 17, 1934, the California National Guard blocked both ends of Jackson Street from Drumm to Front with machine gun mounted trucks to assist vigilante raids, protected by SFPD, on the headquarters of the Marine Workers' Industrial Union and the ILA soup kitchen at 84 Embarcadero. Moving on, the Workers' Ex-Servicemen's League's headquarters on Howard between Third and Fourth was raided, leading to 150 arrests and the complete destruction of the facilities. The employer's group, the Industrial Association, had agents riding with the police. Further raids were carried out at the Workers' Open Forum at 1223 Fillmore street and the Western Worker building opposite City Hall that contained a bookstore and the main offices of the Communist Party, which was thoroughly destroyed. Attacks were also perpetrated on the 121 Haight Street Workers' School and the Mission Workers' Neighborhood House at 741 Valencia Street. A police spokesperson suggested that "maybe the Communists staged the raids themselves for publicity".
General Hugh Johnson, then head of the National Recovery Administration, gave a speech urging responsible labor leaders to "run these subversive influences out from its ranks like rats". A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union was kidnapped and beaten, while vigilantes seized thirteen radicals in San Jose and turned them over to the sheriff of an adjoining county, who transported them to another county. In Hayward in Alameda County someone erected a scaffold in front of the city hall with a noose and a sign stating "Reds beware". In Piedmont, an upscale community bordering both Oakland and Berkeley, the chief of police prepared for a reported attack by strikers on the homes of wealthy ship-owners.
Aftermath
While some of the most powerful in San Francisco considered the strike's denouement to be a victory for the employers, many longshoremen and seamen did not. A number of spontaneous strikes over particular grievances and workplace conditions broke out as these workers returned to their jobs, with longshoremen and teamsters supporting seamen's demands. Employers conceded many of these battles, giving workers even more confidence in demanding that employers lighten unbearably heavy loads. Longshoremen also began dictating other terms, fining members who worked more than the ceiling of 120 hours per month, filing charges against a gang boss for "slandering colored brothers" and forcing employers to fire strikebreakers. Other unions went further: the Marine Firemen proposed to punish any member who bought a Hearst newspaper.
The arbitration award issued on October 12, 1934 allowed the ILA to cement that power. While the award put the operation of the hall in the hands of a committee of both union and employer representatives, the union was given the power to select the dispatcher. Since longshoremen were prepared to walk out if an employer refused to accept a worker dispatched from the hall, the ILA soon controlled hiring on the docks, causing the employers to complain that the union wanted to "sovietize" the waterfront. Discharge itself was a mild penalty, since the worker could obtain other employment through the hiring hall.
The union soon exploited the "quickie strike" to extract many concessions from employers. Similarly, even though an arbitrator held that the 1935 Agreement prohibited sympathy strikes, the union's members nonetheless refused to cross other union's picket lines. Longshoremen also refused to handle hot cargo intended for non-union warehouses that the union was attempting to organize.
The ISU acquired similar authority over hiring, despite the philosophical objection of the union's own officers to hiring halls and a far less generous arbitration award, by the same means. The ISU used this power to drive strikebreakers out of the industry.
The rift between the seamen's and longshoremen's unions only deepened and became more complex in the years to come as Bridges fought with the Sailors Union of the Pacific over labor and political issues. The West Coast district of the ILA broke off from the International in 1937 to form the International Longshoremen's Union, later renamed the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union after the union's "march inland" to organize warehouse workers, then renamed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in recognition of the number of women members.
The arbitration award also gave longshoremen a raise to ninety-five cents an hour for straight time work, just shy of the dollar an hour it demanded during the strike, and a contract that applied up and down the coast.
The ILWU recognizes "Bloody Thursday" by shutting down all West Coast ports every July 5. The ILWU has frequently stopped work for political protests of, among other things, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, fascist intervention in Spain's civil war, South Africa's system of apartheid and the Iraq War.
Further reading
Reds or Rackets, The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront, by Howard Kimeldorf,
Harry Bridges, The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S., by Charles Larrowe, Workers on the Waterfront, Seamen, Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s, by Bruce Nelson,
The Big Strike, by Mike Quin, A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco, by David F. Selvin. Wayne State University Press (July 1996).
The 1934 West Coast Waterfront Strike (also known as the 1934 West Coast Longshoremen's Strike, as well as a number of variations on these names) lasted eighty-three days, triggered by sailors and a four-day general strike in San Francisco, and led to the unionization of all of the West Coast ports of the United States. The San Francisco General Strike, along with the 1934 Toledo Auto-Lite Strike led by the American Workers Party and the Minneapolis Teamsters Strike of 1934 led by the Communist League of America, were important catalysts for the rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s, much of which was organized through the Congress of Industrial Organizations.
Background
Longshoremen on the West Coast ports had either been unorganized or represented by company unions since the years immediately after World War I, when the shipping companies and stevedoring firms had imposed the open shop after a series of failed strikes. Longshoremen in San Francisco, then the major port on the coast, were required to go through a hiring hall operated by a company union, known as the "blue book" system for the color of the membership book.
The Industrial Workers of the World had attempted to organize longshoremen, sailors and fishermen in the 1920s through their Maritime Workers Union. Their largest strike, in San Pedro, California in 1923, bottled up shipping in that harbor, but was crushed by a combination of injunctions, mass arrests and vigilantism by the American Legion. While the IWW was a spent force after that strike, syndicalist thinking remained popular on the docks. Longshoremen and sailors on the West Coast also had contacts with an Australian syndicalist movement that called itself the "One Big Union" formed after the defeat of a general strike there in 1917.
The Communist Party had also been active in the area in the late 1920s, seeking to organize all categories of maritime workers into a single union, the Maritime Workers Industrial Union (MWIU), as part of the drive during the Third Period to create revolutionary unions. The MWIU never made much headway on the West Coast, but it did attract a number of former IWW members and foreign-born militants, such as Harry Bridges, an Australian-born sailor who became a longshoreman after coming to the United States.
Those militants published a newspaper, "The Waterfront Worker", that focused on longshoremen's most pressing demands: more men on each gang, lighter loads and an independent union. While a number of the individuals in this group were Communist Party members, the group as a whole was independent of the party: although it criticized the International Seamen’s Union (ISU) as weak and the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA), which had its base on the East Coast, as corrupt, it did not embrace the MWIU, but called instead for creation of small knots of activists at each port to serve as the first step in a slow, careful movement to unionize the industry.
Events soon made the MWIU wholly irrelevant. Just as the passage of the National Industrial Recovery Act had led to a spontaneous explosion in union membership among coal miners in 1933, thousands of longshoremen now joined the fledgling ILA locals that reappeared on the West Coast. The MWIU faded away as party activists followed the mass of West Coast longshoremen into the ILA.
These newly emboldened workers first went after the "blue book" union, refusing to pay dues to it and tearing up their membership books. The militants who had published "The Waterfront Worker", now known as the "Albion Hall group" after their usual meeting place, continued organizing dock committees that soon began launching slowdowns and other types of job actions in order to win better working conditions. While the official leadership of the ILA remained in the hands of conservatives sent to the West Coast by President Joseph Ryan of the ILA, the Albion Hall group started in March, 1934 to press demands for a coastwide contract, a union-run hiring hall and an industrywide waterfront federation. When the conservative ILA leadership negotiated a weak "gentlemen's agreement" with the employers that had been brokered by the mediation board created by the Roosevelt Administration, Bridges led the membership in rejecting it.
The sticking point in the strike was recognition: the union demanded a closed shop, a coastwide contract and a union hiring hall. The employers offered to arbitrate the dispute, but insisted that the union agree to an open shop as a condition of any agreement to arbitrate. The longshoremen rejected the proposal to arbitrate.
The Big Strike
The strike began on May 9, 1934 as longshoremen in every West Coast port walked out; sailors joined them several days later. The employers recruited strikebreakers, housing them on moored ships or in walled compounds and bringing them to and from work under police protection. Strikers attacked the stockade housing strikebreakers in San Pedro on May 15; two strikers were shot and killed by the employers' private guards. Similar battles broke out in San Francisco and Oakland, California, Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. Strikers also succeeded in slowing down or stopping the movement of goods by rail out of the ports.
The Roosevelt Administration tried again to broker a deal to end the strike, but the membership twice rejected the agreements their leadership brought to them. The employers then decided to make a show of force to reopen the port in San Francisco. On Tuesday, July 3, fights broke out along the Embarcadero in San Francisco between police and strikers while a handful of trucks driven by young businessmen made it through the line.
Some Teamsters supported the strikers by refusing to handle "hot cargo" - goods which had been unloaded by strikebreakers though the Teamsters leadership was not as supportive. By the end of May Dave Beck, president of the Seattle Teamsters, and Mike Casey, president of those in San Francisco, thought the maritime strike had lasted too long. They encouraged the strikers to take what they could get from the employers and threatened to use Teamsters as strikebreakers if the ILA didn't return to work.
"Bloody Thursday"
After a quiet Fourth of July the employers' organization, the Industrial Association, tried to open the port even further on Thursday, July 5. As spectators watched from Rincon Hill, the police shot tear gas canisters into the crowd, then followed with a charge by mounted police. Picketers threw the canisters and rocks back at the police, who charged again, sending the picketers into retreat after a third assault. Each side then refortified and took stock.
Hostilities picked up again that afternoon, when a group of strikers surrounded a police car and attempted to tip it over. The police fired shotguns in the air, then fired their revolvers at the crowd. One of the policemen fired a shotgun into the crowd, killing a striking seaman and a strike sympathizer, Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry.
Strikers immediately cordoned off the area where two picketers had been shot, laying flowers and wreaths around it. Police arrived to remove the flowers and drive off the picketers minutes later. Once the police left, the strikers returned, replaced the flowers and stood guard over the spot.
As strikers carried wounded picketers into the ILA union hall police fired on the hall and lobbed tear gas canisters at nearby hotels. At this point someone reportedly called the union hall to ask "Are you willing to arbitrate now?"
Under orders from California Governor Frank Merriam, the California National Guard moved in that evening to patrol the waterfront. Similarly, federal soldiers of the United States Army stationed at the Presidio were placed on alert. The picketers pulled back, unwilling to take on armed soldiers in an uneven fight, and trucks and trains began moving without interference. Bridges asked the San Francisco Labor Council to meet that Saturday, July 7, to authorize a general strike. The Alameda County Central Labor Council in Oakland considered the same action. Teamsters in both San Francisco and Oakland voted to strike, over the objections of their leaders, on Sunday, July 8.
Funerals and general strike
The following day, several thousand strikers, families and sympathizers took part in a funeral procession down Market Street, stretching more than a mile and a half, for Nicholas Bordois and Howard Sperry, the two persons killed on "Bloody Thursday". The police were wholly absent from the scene. The march made an enormous impact on San Franciscans, making a general strike, which had formerly been "the visionary dream of a small group of the most radical workers . . . a practical and realizable objective." After dozens of Bay Area unions voted for a general strike over the next few days, the San Francisco Labor Council voted on July 14 to call a general strike. The Teamsters had already been out for two days by that point.
San Francisco Mayor Angelo Rossi declared a state of emergency. Some federal officials, particularly Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins, were more skeptical. Roosevelt later recalled that some persons were urging him to steer the USS Houston, which was carrying him to Hawai'i, "into San Francisco Bay, all flags flying and guns double-shotted, and end the strike." Roosevelt rejected the suggestion.
The strike lasted four days. Non-union truck drivers joined the first day; the movie theaters and night clubs closed down. While food deliveries continued with the permission of the strike committee, many small businesses closed, posting signs in support of the strikers. Reports that unions in Portland and Seattle would also begin general strikes picked up currency
End of the strike
The calling of a general strike had an unexpected result: it gave the General Strike Committee, whose makeup was far less militant than the longshoremen's strike committee, effective control over the maritime strike itself. When the Labor Council voted to terminate the general strike it also recommended that the unions accept arbitration of all disputed issues. When the National Longshore Board put the employer's proposal to arbitrate to a vote of striking longshoremen, it passed in every port except Everett, Washington.
That, however, left the striking seamen in the lurch: the employers had refused to arbitrate with the ISU unless it first won elections on the fleets on strike. While Bridges, who had preached solidarity among all maritime workers and scorned arbitration, apologized to the seamen for the longshoremen's vote, the President of the ISU urged them to hold out and to burn their "fink books", the membership records of the company union to which they had been forced to pay dues.
On July 17, 1934, the California National Guard blocked both ends of Jackson Street from Drumm to Front with machine gun mounted trucks to assist vigilante raids, protected by SFPD, on the headquarters of the Marine Workers' Industrial Union and the ILA soup kitchen at 84 Embarcadero. Moving on, the Workers' Ex-Servicemen's League's headquarters on Howard between Third and Fourth was raided, leading to 150 arrests and the complete destruction of the facilities. The employer's group, the Industrial Association, had agents riding with the police. Further raids were carried out at the Workers' Open Forum at 1223 Fillmore street and the Western Worker building opposite City Hall that contained a bookstore and the main offices of the Communist Party, which was thoroughly destroyed. Attacks were also perpetrated on the 121 Haight Street Workers' School and the Mission Workers' Neighborhood House at 741 Valencia Street. A police spokesperson suggested that "maybe the Communists staged the raids themselves for publicity".
General Hugh Johnson, then head of the National Recovery Administration, gave a speech urging responsible labor leaders to "run these subversive influences out from its ranks like rats". A lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union was kidnapped and beaten, while vigilantes seized thirteen radicals in San Jose and turned them over to the sheriff of an adjoining county, who transported them to another county. In Hayward in Alameda County someone erected a scaffold in front of the city hall with a noose and a sign stating "Reds beware". In Piedmont, an upscale community bordering both Oakland and Berkeley, the chief of police prepared for a reported attack by strikers on the homes of wealthy ship-owners.
Aftermath
While some of the most powerful in San Francisco considered the strike's denouement to be a victory for the employers, many longshoremen and seamen did not. A number of spontaneous strikes over particular grievances and workplace conditions broke out as these workers returned to their jobs, with longshoremen and teamsters supporting seamen's demands. Employers conceded many of these battles, giving workers even more confidence in demanding that employers lighten unbearably heavy loads. Longshoremen also began dictating other terms, fining members who worked more than the ceiling of 120 hours per month, filing charges against a gang boss for "slandering colored brothers" and forcing employers to fire strikebreakers. Other unions went further: the Marine Firemen proposed to punish any member who bought a Hearst newspaper.
The arbitration award issued on October 12, 1934 allowed the ILA to cement that power. While the award put the operation of the hall in the hands of a committee of both union and employer representatives, the union was given the power to select the dispatcher. Since longshoremen were prepared to walk out if an employer refused to accept a worker dispatched from the hall, the ILA soon controlled hiring on the docks, causing the employers to complain that the union wanted to "sovietize" the waterfront. Discharge itself was a mild penalty, since the worker could obtain other employment through the hiring hall.
The union soon exploited the "quickie strike" to extract many concessions from employers. Similarly, even though an arbitrator held that the 1935 Agreement prohibited sympathy strikes, the union's members nonetheless refused to cross other union's picket lines. Longshoremen also refused to handle hot cargo intended for non-union warehouses that the union was attempting to organize.
The ISU acquired similar authority over hiring, despite the philosophical objection of the union's own officers to hiring halls and a far less generous arbitration award, by the same means. The ISU used this power to drive strikebreakers out of the industry.
The rift between the seamen's and longshoremen's unions only deepened and became more complex in the years to come as Bridges fought with the Sailors Union of the Pacific over labor and political issues. The West Coast district of the ILA broke off from the International in 1937 to form the International Longshoremen's Union, later renamed the International Longshoremen's and Warehousemen's Union after the union's "march inland" to organize warehouse workers, then renamed the International Longshore and Warehouse Union in recognition of the number of women members.
The arbitration award also gave longshoremen a raise to ninety-five cents an hour for straight time work, just shy of the dollar an hour it demanded during the strike, and a contract that applied up and down the coast.
The ILWU recognizes "Bloody Thursday" by shutting down all West Coast ports every July 5. The ILWU has frequently stopped work for political protests of, among other things, Italy's invasion of Ethiopia, fascist intervention in Spain's civil war, South Africa's system of apartheid and the Iraq War.
Further reading
Reds or Rackets, The Making of Radical and Conservative Unions on the Waterfront, by Howard Kimeldorf,
Harry Bridges, The Rise and Fall of Radical Labor in the U.S., by Charles Larrowe, Workers on the Waterfront, Seamen, Longshoremen and Unionism in the 1930s, by Bruce Nelson,
The Big Strike, by Mike Quin, A Terrible Anger: The 1934 Waterfront and General Strikes in San Francisco, by David F. Selvin. Wayne State University Press (July 1996).
venerdì 3 ottobre 2008
The Blue Book
In 1916 the Blue Book signed a contract with the shipowners in San Francisco to act as the sole representative of the longshoremen in labor disputes. It was really just a scheme by the shipowners to prevent a bonafide union from organizing their workers. The Blue Book served no one's interests but the shipping companies', which meant bad working conditions for Harry Bridges and other longshoremen.
Under the Blue Book, if a man wanted a job as a longshoreman he had to show up near the docks early in the morning to gather with other potential workers in the street. The foremen for the ship owners would then come down to where the men had gathered and select who they wanted for the day. As the morning wore on the area surrounding the docks would quickly become crowded with people going to work and passengers departing or arriving by ship. If the men waiting to be hired were sufficient in number to start obstructing the flow of people, the police would then come down and shoo them off. Such a hiring process could be very humiliating for the men.
Conditions under the Blue Book also led to what is known as a "speed-up". During the speed-up workers were plentiful enough that the foreman at a site could, on a whim, replace any man that he felt wasn't working fast enough with another man that was waiting for a job. This meant that every man at a site had to work the absolute fastest he could for fear of losing his job. Unfortunately, the fastest for many men, was not fast enough to be able to compete with younger men.
In 1924, the Blue Book's contract with the ship owners expired. As the date when the contract would expire neared, there was a growing attempt to revive an old AFL union. Some of the people trying to revive the old union marched in the Labor Day parade that year in support of the union. When the Blue Book's contract was renewed for another five years, the marchers in the parade were blacklisted. For a couple years they had difficulty finding jobs as longshoremen. The U.S. citizens were able to get some work at the army transport docks, while the non-citizens went to the Japanese lines, the only lines not affiliated with the Blue Book. Harry Bridges was among the marchers who found work with the Japanese lines.
In 1926 and ‘27 Bridges paid his dues with the Blue Book and went back to work for the other lines. In 1927 he lost his job when he asked a Blue Book representative to settle a wages dispute for him. He then joined a steel handling gang that he worked with until 1932.
Under the Blue Book, if a man wanted a job as a longshoreman he had to show up near the docks early in the morning to gather with other potential workers in the street. The foremen for the ship owners would then come down to where the men had gathered and select who they wanted for the day. As the morning wore on the area surrounding the docks would quickly become crowded with people going to work and passengers departing or arriving by ship. If the men waiting to be hired were sufficient in number to start obstructing the flow of people, the police would then come down and shoo them off. Such a hiring process could be very humiliating for the men.
Conditions under the Blue Book also led to what is known as a "speed-up". During the speed-up workers were plentiful enough that the foreman at a site could, on a whim, replace any man that he felt wasn't working fast enough with another man that was waiting for a job. This meant that every man at a site had to work the absolute fastest he could for fear of losing his job. Unfortunately, the fastest for many men, was not fast enough to be able to compete with younger men.
In 1924, the Blue Book's contract with the ship owners expired. As the date when the contract would expire neared, there was a growing attempt to revive an old AFL union. Some of the people trying to revive the old union marched in the Labor Day parade that year in support of the union. When the Blue Book's contract was renewed for another five years, the marchers in the parade were blacklisted. For a couple years they had difficulty finding jobs as longshoremen. The U.S. citizens were able to get some work at the army transport docks, while the non-citizens went to the Japanese lines, the only lines not affiliated with the Blue Book. Harry Bridges was among the marchers who found work with the Japanese lines.
In 1926 and ‘27 Bridges paid his dues with the Blue Book and went back to work for the other lines. In 1927 he lost his job when he asked a Blue Book representative to settle a wages dispute for him. He then joined a steel handling gang that he worked with until 1932.
Asbestos Information
What is Asbestos?
Asbestos is a non-specific name for an assemblage of minerals which are fibrous silicates. These minerals are found in many forms all over the world and are still frequently used in many countries.
The main types of asbestos are:
White - Chrysotile
Brown - Amosite
Blue - Crocidolite
Asbestos Dust Kills
Asbestos dust kills more people than any other single work related cause. This number is thought to be around 3000 people each year. Breathing air that is contaminated with asbestos dust can lead to asbestos related diseases which are mainly cancers of the lungs and chest. Once contracted, the disease may not become evident until decades after the initial exposure. It is clearly identifiable that most people dying from asbestos related diseases were exposed during the 1950's.
Legislation
Asbestos legislation now applies to virtually all types of asbestos products which appear are in various forms. Licensed Company's only are permitted to remove and dispose asbestos. Asbestos legislation is now a complex and specialised field, we are constantly updated operative training and working methods. We aim to keep our management up-to-date with new and existing legislations.
Asbestos is a non-specific name for an assemblage of minerals which are fibrous silicates. These minerals are found in many forms all over the world and are still frequently used in many countries.
The main types of asbestos are:
White - Chrysotile
Brown - Amosite
Blue - Crocidolite
Asbestos Dust Kills
Asbestos dust kills more people than any other single work related cause. This number is thought to be around 3000 people each year. Breathing air that is contaminated with asbestos dust can lead to asbestos related diseases which are mainly cancers of the lungs and chest. Once contracted, the disease may not become evident until decades after the initial exposure. It is clearly identifiable that most people dying from asbestos related diseases were exposed during the 1950's.
Legislation
Asbestos legislation now applies to virtually all types of asbestos products which appear are in various forms. Licensed Company's only are permitted to remove and dispose asbestos. Asbestos legislation is now a complex and specialised field, we are constantly updated operative training and working methods. We aim to keep our management up-to-date with new and existing legislations.
ASBESTOS DUST KILLS KEEP YOUR MASK ON
Why is asbestos dangerous?
Breathing in asbestos fibres can lead to asbestos-related diseases. These are mainly
cancers of the chest and lungs and they kill more people than any other single work-related cause. There is a long delay between first exposure to asbestos and the start of disease. This can vary between 15 and 60 years. The vast majority of
people now dying from asbestos-related diseases were exposed to asbestos during the 1950s and 1960s. But of course people in the asbestos stripping industry still work with it today. Workers in the building maintenance and refurbishment trade may also come across it frequently. The Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations 2002 require your employer - and self-employed workers - to do all they reasonably can to prevent, or, where this is not possible, to keep to a minimum, employees’ exposure to asbestos.
How much asbestos would I need to breathe in to develop an asbestos-related disease?
Nobody knows. But we do know the more asbestos fibres you breathe in, the greater the
risk to your health. That is why it is important that everyone who works with asbestos should take the strictest precautions to reduce the amount of asbestos fibres in the workplace. In many situations you will also need to use respiratory protective equipment (RPE).
What is RPE?
RPE is the name given to various face masks, hoods and helmets which you can wear to protect your lungs from asbestos.
When do I need to wear RPE?
The law requires that your employer must try to prevent your exposure to asbestos. If this is not possible, they must reduce your exposure to asbestos as far as they reasonably can. This might include wearing RPE. But your employer must always provide you with suitable RPE if you are working in an area where the amount of asbestos in the air is greater than the control limits laid down in the Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations. The RPE should reduce the asbestos you breathe in to a concentration as low as is reasonably practicable and to below the
control limits.
Does it matter what type of RPE I wear?
YES. The type of RPE you need will depend on the amount of asbestos in the air and the type of job you are doing. Your employer must make sure you have the right type for the work you are doing and that it fits you properly. For instance half
mask dust respirators are not suitable for asbestos stripping work.
What else must my employer do?
Your employer must:
■ do all they reasonably can to keep the amountof asbestos in the air to a minimum beforethey provide you with RPE;
■ train you how to fit and use your RPE properly;
■ carry out tests to make sure that your face mask fits you properly;
■ make sure training is updated and that refresher training is given;
■ make sure the RPE you use is in good working
order, properly cleaned and looked after.
What else can I do to protect my health?
■ Always use the equipment (eg a vacuum cleaner) your employer provides to reduce the
amount of asbestos dust in the air.
■ Always wear the RPE your employer gives you.
■ Never take off your RPE in a contaminated area - not even for a minute.
■ Make sure your RPE fits you properly - if it doesn’t fit properly it doesn’t work properly and your health and life will be put at risk. If you have a beard, sideburns or even a visible growth of stubble or if you wear glasses, certain
types of RPE may not fit you properly: the stubble, glasses etc will leave small gaps where the mask should be sealed tightly to your face. To make sure that the facepiece protects you as well as it can, your employer should make sure you have a
face fit test before you you use it. If you are worried that your RPE doesn’t fit you properly ask your employer or safety representative, if you have one.
■ Never misuse your RPE, eg do not loosen the straps, cut parts of the face seal or make gaps in the seal to make it more comfortable.
■ If you think your RPE isn’t working properly, leave the contaminated area and
tell your employer.
■ If you have not been given RPE and you think you might need it, or you are worried that you don’t have the right RPE for the job, speak to your employer or safety representative. Don’t take risks with your health and life.
■ The risk of cancer from asbestos is higher among smokers. If you smoke, you can
reduce the risk to your health by stopping. Choosing suitable RPE is your employer’s
responsibility, but if you want more information on RPE, ask for our leaflet Selection of suitable respiratory protective equipment for work with asbestos, or ask your health and safety representative if there is one. More information
Asbestos alert for building maintenance, repair and refurbishment workers: Be aware of asbestos the hidden killer Pocket card INDG188 HSE Books 1995 (single copy free or priced packs of 25 ISBN 0 7176 1209 0) Selection of suitable respiratory protective equipment for work with asbestos Leaflet INDG288(rev1) HSE Books 2003 (single copy free or priced packs of 5 ISBN 0 7176 2220 7) Working with asbestos in buildings Leaflet INDG289 HSE Books 1999 (single copy free or priced packs of 10 ISBN 0 7176 1697 5) HSE priced and free publications are available by mail order from HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2WA Tel: 01787 881165
Fax: 01787 313995 Website: www.hsebooks.co.uk (HSE priced publications are also available from bookshops and free leaflets can be downloaded from HSE’s website: www.hse.gov.uk.) For information about health and safety ring HSE’s Infoline Tel: 08701 545500 Fax: 02920 859260 e-mail: hseinformationservices@natbrit.com or
write to HSE Information Services, Caerphilly Business Park, Caerphilly CF83 3GG.
This leaflet is available in priced packs of 20, ISBN 0 7176 1696 7 This leaflet contains notes on good practice which are not compulsory but which you may find helpful in considering what you need to do. © Crown copyright This publication may be freely reproduced, except for advertising, endorsement or commercial purposes.
First published 4/99. Please acknowledge the source as HSE. INDG255(rev1) 9/03 C400 Printed and published by the Health and Safety Executive.
ASBESTOS DUST
KILLS
KEEP YOUR
MASK ON
Guidance for employees on wearing respiratory protective equipment for work with asbestos HSE Health & Safety Executive ASBESTOS DUST KILLS Taking off your RPE in a contaminated area puts you at risk. Don’t do it - EVER.
In the UK work-related deaths are higher than the murder rate
Violent crime is a serious and complex problem. The capitalist media gives it a lot of coverage, but not so those preventable safety crimes that last year caused twice as many deaths as violent criminals.
The solutions offered by the corporate press for violent crime - longer sentences, new offences - are often inferior to policies which would tackle the production and distribution of dangerous weapons. But as Britain has now become the worlds foremost arms exporter, you’d hardly expect the Sun to be demanding restrictions on the manufacture and sale of dangerous weapons…
Because safety crime has not been “problematised” - it not thought of as a problem - no solutions are offered by the mainstream media. In fact, government policy has lead to increasing numbers of safety crimes. You might even say, New Labour is a soft-touch when it comes to crimes against the safety of workers and consumers.
From The Guardian:
In January Garry Weddell, who was on bail awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, killed his mother-in-law before taking his own life. The fact that he was out on bail generated a huge public row and Jack Straw, the justice secretary, ordered a review of the bail arrangements for murder suspects that was published today.
The review concluded that banning bail for all murder suspects would “present legal problems”. Straw said that the important thing was to “strike the right balance between respecting individuals’ right to liberty and protecting the public”.
But, if he wanted to learn more about protecting the public, Straw should have dropped in to committee room 11 in the Commons this afternoon where the authors of a new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies were presenting the findings of a fascinating study into “the decriminalisation of death and injury at work”.
Officially, you are more likely to be murdered in the UK than to die in a workplace accident. In 2005-06 there were 765 homicides in England and Wales (14 per million) and 217 fatal injuries to workers (7 per million).
But the authors tried to get a more accurate figure for workplace fatalities. The official Health and Safety Executive figures only include fatal injuries to employees and the self-employed. If you include accidents that kill members of the public and road deaths involving “at work” vehicles, the number of people killed from occupational injuries rises to around 1,300.
Or, as the authors say, “at least twice as many people die from fatal injuries at work than are victims of homicide”.
The authors described this as “safety crime” (a term I have never heard before). And they suggest that Labour’s light-touch regulatory approach to business is making it easier for employers to get away with it.
“What is remarkable about these unremarkable processes is how they attract little or no popular, political or academic attention,” they say.
“Just as remarkable here is the contrast between this deafening silence on the one hand and the ongoing moral panic that characterises social responses to most ‘mainstream’ violent crime on the other.”
The solutions offered by the corporate press for violent crime - longer sentences, new offences - are often inferior to policies which would tackle the production and distribution of dangerous weapons. But as Britain has now become the worlds foremost arms exporter, you’d hardly expect the Sun to be demanding restrictions on the manufacture and sale of dangerous weapons…
Because safety crime has not been “problematised” - it not thought of as a problem - no solutions are offered by the mainstream media. In fact, government policy has lead to increasing numbers of safety crimes. You might even say, New Labour is a soft-touch when it comes to crimes against the safety of workers and consumers.
From The Guardian:
In January Garry Weddell, who was on bail awaiting trial for the murder of his wife, killed his mother-in-law before taking his own life. The fact that he was out on bail generated a huge public row and Jack Straw, the justice secretary, ordered a review of the bail arrangements for murder suspects that was published today.
The review concluded that banning bail for all murder suspects would “present legal problems”. Straw said that the important thing was to “strike the right balance between respecting individuals’ right to liberty and protecting the public”.
But, if he wanted to learn more about protecting the public, Straw should have dropped in to committee room 11 in the Commons this afternoon where the authors of a new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies were presenting the findings of a fascinating study into “the decriminalisation of death and injury at work”.
Officially, you are more likely to be murdered in the UK than to die in a workplace accident. In 2005-06 there were 765 homicides in England and Wales (14 per million) and 217 fatal injuries to workers (7 per million).
But the authors tried to get a more accurate figure for workplace fatalities. The official Health and Safety Executive figures only include fatal injuries to employees and the self-employed. If you include accidents that kill members of the public and road deaths involving “at work” vehicles, the number of people killed from occupational injuries rises to around 1,300.
Or, as the authors say, “at least twice as many people die from fatal injuries at work than are victims of homicide”.
The authors described this as “safety crime” (a term I have never heard before). And they suggest that Labour’s light-touch regulatory approach to business is making it easier for employers to get away with it.
“What is remarkable about these unremarkable processes is how they attract little or no popular, political or academic attention,” they say.
“Just as remarkable here is the contrast between this deafening silence on the one hand and the ongoing moral panic that characterises social responses to most ‘mainstream’ violent crime on the other.”
What is ThyssenKrupp?
ThyssenKrupp is a large German industrial conglomerate, with more than 200,000 employees. The corporation consists of 670 single companies worldwide. ThyssenKrupp is one of the world's largest steel producers. It operates worldwide in three business areas: steel, capital goods, and services. The steel unit concentrates on carbon steel and stainless steel, while the capital goods unit consists of three segments: elevators, automotive (parts, sub-assemblies, and modules), and technologies (machine tools, large-diameter bearings, and industrial doors). The services sector provides tailor-made materials, environmental services, mechanical engineering, and scaffolding services. The company is the result of the 1999 merger of Thyssen and Krupp. It is registered in Essen and Duisburg (both Germany). As of 2008 25.01% of the company shares are held by the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Foundation.ThyssenKrupp is currently holding the European leader in dell'acciaieria and steel.
With headquarters in Essen in the Ruhr, began by producing guns for the army of the Third Reich.
With the advent of World War II, Krupp and Thyssen (then rival) began to produce the best German Panzer. Thyssen founded the Dutch bank Voor Handel en Scheepvart, and then entered the manufacturing sector.
In 1926, Thyssen & partner and Frederick Flick are the German steel trust. The cartel was founded at the initiative of Clarence Dillon, President in'20-'60's Dillon & Co, a major bank in New York. Under the agreements, the Dillon would flow right bank of the Trust and two representatives of Dillon would have entered the advice of the Community Trust. Chief Executive of the Trust was Albert Voegler, German industrial.
After the war the two industries now united and produce lifts, military vehicles, tanks, naval industry.
In Italy the main offices are in Turin and Terni, managed by the subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni SpA
The accident in Turin [Amendment]
In the night between 5 and 6 December 2007 seven workers of the factory in Turin is invested by a blaze caused by a leakage of hot oil [1]. The seven will die within a month, while another worker is injured in a non-serious. To the criticism were raised by several parties, and because some of the workers affected by the accident were working 12 hours, then having accumulated 4 hours of overtime, because according to the testimonies of some workers the security systems have not worked ( discharge fire extinguishers, water system, lack of skilled personnel) [2]. The company has denied that the origin of the fire is a violation of safety standards [3].
As reported by the newspaper La Stampa, in the investigation that followed, the Guardia di Finanza have seized the administrator delegate of Thyssenkrupp Italiana, Harald Espenhahn, a document that says that Antonio Boccuzzi, the only surviving witness, 'Should be stopped by legal action, as argued on television against allegations of heavy multinational. The document also claims that the fire is the fault of the seven workers who were distracted [4]. For the CEO will be made by prosecutors the option of the crime of murder with malice and arson, while five other executives will be charged with murder and arson, for all the omission of fraud-prevention systems. [5].
The July 2008 the family members of the seven victims have accepted the agreement with the company for damages for a total of 12 million and 970 thousand euros. With the agreement family members waive the right to build a civil party to the process management.
With headquarters in Essen in the Ruhr, began by producing guns for the army of the Third Reich.
With the advent of World War II, Krupp and Thyssen (then rival) began to produce the best German Panzer. Thyssen founded the Dutch bank Voor Handel en Scheepvart, and then entered the manufacturing sector.
In 1926, Thyssen & partner and Frederick Flick are the German steel trust. The cartel was founded at the initiative of Clarence Dillon, President in'20-'60's Dillon & Co, a major bank in New York. Under the agreements, the Dillon would flow right bank of the Trust and two representatives of Dillon would have entered the advice of the Community Trust. Chief Executive of the Trust was Albert Voegler, German industrial.
After the war the two industries now united and produce lifts, military vehicles, tanks, naval industry.
In Italy the main offices are in Turin and Terni, managed by the subsidiary ThyssenKrupp Acciai Speciali Terni SpA
The accident in Turin [Amendment]
In the night between 5 and 6 December 2007 seven workers of the factory in Turin is invested by a blaze caused by a leakage of hot oil [1]. The seven will die within a month, while another worker is injured in a non-serious. To the criticism were raised by several parties, and because some of the workers affected by the accident were working 12 hours, then having accumulated 4 hours of overtime, because according to the testimonies of some workers the security systems have not worked ( discharge fire extinguishers, water system, lack of skilled personnel) [2]. The company has denied that the origin of the fire is a violation of safety standards [3].
As reported by the newspaper La Stampa, in the investigation that followed, the Guardia di Finanza have seized the administrator delegate of Thyssenkrupp Italiana, Harald Espenhahn, a document that says that Antonio Boccuzzi, the only surviving witness, 'Should be stopped by legal action, as argued on television against allegations of heavy multinational. The document also claims that the fire is the fault of the seven workers who were distracted [4]. For the CEO will be made by prosecutors the option of the crime of murder with malice and arson, while five other executives will be charged with murder and arson, for all the omission of fraud-prevention systems. [5].
The July 2008 the family members of the seven victims have accepted the agreement with the company for damages for a total of 12 million and 970 thousand euros. With the agreement family members waive the right to build a civil party to the process management.
Victims at work in the World
R.S. Edited by a ECplanet
Work-related accidents each year are 4% of world GDP. The information disseminated by the ILO on the occasion of World Day of the health and safety at work. Every year, worldwide, 2.2 million workers lose their lives due to accidents at work or occupational disease. It is as if every year a city like Paris is lost and its homes and its streets remained deserted in a terrible silence. Over 270 million are the accidents that occur each year and 160 million new cases of occupational diseases.
The figures are contained in a report submitted in recent days by the ILO in Geneva on the occasion of World Day for Safety and Health at Work. The organization has launched a new appeal for best practices in health and safety at work (including the reporting of accidents and occupational diseases, inspection of work and respect the rules) as a means to reduce the number accidents, injuries and diseases at work and improve productivity.
"The incidents - Maziadi said Sameer Al-Tuwaijri of the ILO - are not intrinsic to the work. Experience shows that most accidents can be avoided. We need the commitment of governments, employers and workers to systematically implement best practices for prevention at the national level to level. " From an economic standpoint, accidents and occupational diseases represent a loss equal to 4% of world GDP, "which amounts to 20 times the total amount of official development worldwide."
The ILO report also highlights the link between decent work and occupational health and safety. The ILO has adopted in 2006, the Promotional Framework Convention on Safety and Health at Work. "The new framework Convention aims to promote the health and safety at work. At the same time, the Convention encourages the political commitment to develop national strategies to promote the safety and health at work and prevent injuries, illnesses and deaths linked to employment, to take the necessary measures to gradually create healthy working environments and secure a regular basis to consider measures to be taken to ratify the ILO Conventions on health and safety. "
Italy is the country with more accidents at work in Europe
Italy is the country with more accidents
The Anmil Report: More than a thousand victims a year
"Perverse effect linked to the production model."
The Thyssen Turin,
where workers died 7
ROME - Italy has the unenviable record of the victims at work in Europe, the number of "white deaths ", although down on previous years, is decreased less than in the rest of Europe. Over the past ten years, during the period between 1995 and 2004, we recorded the decline was equal to 25.49 percent while the European average, the decline was equal to 29.41 percent.
The reduction was even greater in Germany, where the number of victims has nearly halved (-48.3 percent), and Spain where there was a decrease of 33.64 percent. These are some of the results reported in the second report on the condition''and Protection of Victims of labor between laws and rights denied inapliccate''presented by Anmil, National Association of maimed and disabled workers, the Head of State Giorgio Napolitano.
In official figures, although less alarming than those relating to victims, not including accidents that are not reported by those employed in the work where, according to the Inail, occur at least 200 thousand cases.
Overall accidents at work are about one million deaths annually and over a thousand. In Germany in 1995, the victims were 1500, two hundred more than in Italy. Today fell to 804 units, a number far lower than Italy. These numbers, say Amnil, show how it is not a phenomenon relegated to occasional and extraordinary situations but rather "a perverse effect that seems deeply innervation in the mode of production."
Compensation reduced
The reform carried out by Legislative Decree 38/2000 which introduced on an experimental basis, the coverage of biological damage, in fact, say Anmil, has resulted in a net reduction in the level of pension benefits or even the transformation of 'compensation pension, paid a one-off capital. "
If an injured worker who loses a foot has a wife and a dependent child and an average wage, is found today by INAIL to receive 13.39% of the annuity in less (or 963 euros a year) as provided Ripetta the previous regime Decree 38/2000. The loss in terms of compensation in a civil proceeding would then amount to about 45 thousand.
Too timid steps
The renewed awareness of the seriousness of the phenomenon, also rose because of the many speeches by the President of the Republic on the issue, seems not yet managed to produce a significant reversal of trend. The authors of the report stress that five months after the entry into force of Law 123/07, which established new rules on occupational safety, the provincial coordination of inspections are just taking the first steps while the staff involved in prevention accidents, at the current rate, use 23 years to monitor all companies. The Anmil also stresses even as it intervenes almost always done things and very rarely at the level of prevention.
Things to do
Among the remedies needed, Anmil indicated there are more investment activities on prevention and control, the introduction of appropriate penalties to the seriousness and consequences of behavior, the organization of an administrative and judicial machinery that will ensure the application and certain Quick sanctions and promozinoe initiatives informative, educational and cultural development in the medium to longer term greater attention to prevention.
The Anmil Report: More than a thousand victims a year
"Perverse effect linked to the production model."
The Thyssen Turin,
where workers died 7
Thyssenkrupp
ROME - Italy has the unenviable record of the victims at work in Europe, the number of "white deaths ", although down on previous years, is decreased less than in the rest of Europe. Over the past ten years, during the period between 1995 and 2004, we recorded the decline was equal to 25.49 percent while the European average, the decline was equal to 29.41 percent.
The reduction was even greater in Germany, where the number of victims has nearly halved (-48.3 percent), and Spain where there was a decrease of 33.64 percent. These are some of the results reported in the second report on the condition''and Protection of Victims of labor between laws and rights denied inapliccate''presented by Anmil, National Association of maimed and disabled workers, the Head of State Giorgio Napolitano.
In official figures, although less alarming than those relating to victims, not including accidents that are not reported by those employed in the work where, according to the Inail, occur at least 200 thousand cases.
Overall accidents at work are about one million deaths annually and over a thousand. In Germany in 1995, the victims were 1500, two hundred more than in Italy. Today fell to 804 units, a number far lower than Italy. These numbers, say Amnil, show how it is not a phenomenon relegated to occasional and extraordinary situations but rather "a perverse effect that seems deeply innervation in the mode of production."
Compensation reduced
The reform carried out by Legislative Decree 38/2000 which introduced on an experimental basis, the coverage of biological damage, in fact, say Anmil, has resulted in a net reduction in the level of pension benefits or even the transformation of 'compensation pension, paid a one-off capital. "
If an injured worker who loses a foot has a wife and a dependent child and an average wage, is found today by INAIL to receive 13.39% of the annuity in less (or 963 euros a year) as provided Ripetta the previous regime Decree 38/2000. The loss in terms of compensation in a civil proceeding would then amount to about 45 thousand.
Too timid steps
The renewed awareness of the seriousness of the phenomenon, also rose because of the many speeches by the President of the Republic on the issue, seems not yet managed to produce a significant reversal of trend. The authors of the report stress that five months after the entry into force of Law 123/07, which established new rules on occupational safety, the provincial coordination of inspections are just taking the first steps while the staff involved in prevention accidents, at the current rate, use 23 years to monitor all companies. The Anmil also stresses even as it intervenes almost always done things and very rarely at the level of prevention.
Things to do
Among the remedies needed, Anmil indicated there are more investment activities on prevention and control, the introduction of appropriate penalties to the seriousness and consequences of behavior, the organization of an administrative and judicial machinery that will ensure the application and certain Quick sanctions and promozinoe initiatives informative, educational and cultural development in the medium to longer term greater attention to prevention.
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Informazioni personali
- IN THE LINE OF DUTY
- “At least twice as many people die from fatal injuries at work than are victims of homicide. What is remarkable about these unremarkable processes is how they attract little or no popular, political or academic attention. Just as remarkable here is the contrast between this deafening silence on the one hand and the ongoing moral panic that characterises social responses to most ‘mainstream’ violent crime on the other.” Absolutely, the way fatalities in the workplace are brushed under the carpet is obscene and the true figure is higher than the HSE gives. I mean, Workers’ Memorial Day is a time to the remember the dead and fight for the living (and it is a good slogan) but not enough is being done esp. in workplaces were health and safety are neglected. And also people who have worked with asbestos for example, they can end up a ticking time bomb as the cancer can take years to develop. More people die from asbestos related illnesses than die in traffic accidents. And yet when it to dealing with companies etc. to make them responsible the government runs shy. I mean, look at the Corporate Manslaughter legislation….