GLOBAL: UNION ACTION ON ASBESTOS SHIP HAZARDS
Brazilian and Turkish trade unions are working together to address asbestos and other hazards linked to plans to break up a warship. The Nea São Paulo has left Brazil for Turkey, where there are plans to recycle the toxics laden vessel. “Together, CUT and DISK declare that we will fight to prevent the damage caused by asbestos and the dismantling processes to workers, public health, and the environment,” a joint statement said. “A ship containing toxic waste… will put the lives of workers and others in their community at risk. Workers’ unions CUT (Brazil) and DISK (Turkey) oppose this move and commit to intensify the fight.” The unions warn the İzmir Aliağa shipyard in Turkey, to which the vessel is underway, does not have the facilities needed for job and has poor working conditions, low wages, and inadequate safety measures at work. They want the former French navy vessel to be recycled in France.
Source: DISK/CUT statement 16 August 2022
USA: UPS DRIVERS PUSH FOR SAFETY AS TEMPERATURES SOAR
Drivers with the US Postal Service (UPS) are wilting under the pressure of making hundreds of stops a day in sweltering conditions, as the company makes record profits. Now the workers, represented by the Teamsters union, are pushing for air conditioning in vehicles and better protections on the job. The union is demanded urgent details from UPS on the company’s plans, training materials, and assessments on protecting workers from excessive heat. As the climate crisis worsens, workers are increasingly at risk of illness or death due to heat exposure on the job, with high heat index days of above 100F expected to double by mid-century.
Source: The Guardian.
UK: TRAIN DRIVERS REMEMBER DEAD COLLEAGUES
Train drivers’ union ASLEF has said Britain must no longer neglect the infrastructure of the railway system, or we could see a repeat of the Carmont tragedy in which three people lost their lives after a landslip onto the railway line caused a train to derail. Kevin Lindsay, ASLEF’s organiser in Scotland, said: “It is with enormous sadness that we remember the event at Carmont on Wednesday 12 August 2020, which claimed the lives of three people – the driver, Brett McCullough, 45; the conductor, Donald Dinnie, 58; and a passenger, Christopher Stuchbury, 62 – and in which six other people were injured. It was an accident which cast a long shadow across the railway industry, not just here in Scotland, but throughout the United Kingdom.” ASLEF general secretary Mick Whelan added the tragedy highlighted the need to “ensure that the infrastructure of Britain’s railways is not neglected, so that accidents of this sort do not happen again.”
Source: ASLEF news release.
