MUA National Secretary John Coombs today announced waterside workers nationwide would instigate safety bans on shipments of raw asbestos coming into the country.
The nationwide health and safety bans will apply immediately. Bans on asbestos imports already apply in other European nations including France, Finland, Italy, Germany and the UK.
Mr Coombs was speaking at National Asbestos Awareness Week, Remembrance Day, held in honour of the thousands of Australians workers killed due to exposure to deadly asbestos fibres.
“The union and its members are not prepared to compromise health and safety standards by exposure to asbestos dust. The Australian public should be aware that this proven lethal substance is still being imported into the country by the tonne,” he said. “We shut down the mines, but now they are bringing it from overseas.”
Australia imports 1500 tonnes of raw asbestos and an estimated 1 million products containing asbestos. Most of the raw asbestos goes into the manufacture of brake linings in Melbourne. But a World Trade Organisation panel of experts concluded in September that asbestos fibres can be substituted with safer materials.
The National Occupational Health and Safety Commission has recommended a phase out of asbestos imports over five years. ACTU executive says this is not good enough. Australia has one of the worlds’ highest rates of mesothelioma Worksafe Australia estimates 16,000 mesothelioma deaths and 40,000 lung cancer deaths between 1987 and 2010.
Less than 15 per cent of patients who develop lung cancer will survive five years. The majority will be dead within 12 months. And as yet there is no cure for mesothelioma, a cancer of the lung lining caused by asbestos.
The union movement has been at the forefront of the battle to outlaw asbestos and win compensation for men and women dying from asbestos disease. Unions have successfully campaigned for the closure of the asbestos mines at Wittenoom, Barbara and Baryulgil for government bans on blue asbestos and for employees to have the right to stop work if asbestos guidelines are breached. The MUA, CFMEU and ETU are now lobbying the NSW government for an asbestos disease research institute at Concord Hospital.
Unions have also helped win record compensation payouts for workers and their families struck by asbestos disease and death. Last week wharfie’s widow Maureen Crimmins won a marathon legal battle for compensation against the Federal Government. More than 500 claims are to follow.
It is noteworthy that ACTU executive passed a resolution of October 31,2000 as follows:
“The ACTU Executive is appalled at the failure of the National Occupational Health & Safety Commission to recommend prohibition of the use of white asbestos. Executive notes that the NOH&SCC themselves estimate that 40,000 asbestos related deaths will occur in the next 20 years. The failure of government representatives and employers on the Commission to support the prohibition of the use of asbestos is a national disgrace and if not challenged will condemn innocent workers, their families and the general public to unacceptable exposure to a killer dust.
“ACTU Executive therefore determines to conduct a campaign to ban the use of asbestos and asbestos containing products so that no more Australian contract asbestos related diseases.”
Contact:
MUA National Secretary John Coombs: mobile 0419 240 264
