CANCER CAUSE Samsung is being urged to accept responsibility for work cancers. But Greenpeace says it has reneged on a promise to eliminate cancer-causing chemicals.

A global electronics giant embroiled in an occupational cancer scandal has been accused by Greenpeace of reneging on a promise to phase out toxic chemicals linked to cancer and other diseases.

This week climbers from the environmental group scaled the Benelux headquarters of the Korean multinational Samsung, sticking the message “Samsung = Broken Promises” in giant letters onto the front of the building.  

In June 2004, Samsung was the first company to publicly commit to eliminate PVC – a well-established cause of occupational cancers – and brominated flame retardants (BFRs) from new models of all its products.

In 2006 Samsung committed to phasing out BFRs from its products by the start of 2010 and in 2007 it committed to a deadline of end 2010 for the phase out of PVC. Both moves saw the company gain points and position on Greenpeace’s Guide to Greener Electronics.

Greenpeace says Samsung  is now “betraying its customers trust” in only admitted weeks before it was due to deliver new greener products that it would fail and break its promise. The latest version of the Guide penalises Samsung for this delay. Unless the company takes urgent action to meet its commitments, says Greenpeace, it will suffer a further penalty in the next edition – the first company ever to do so.

“Samsung’s promises are proving to be as thin as its TVs, as it loses face and ground to competitors such as Apple, HP, Nokia and Sony Ericsson who have long delivered products free of these hazardous substances, proving that this can be done,” said Greenpeace International Electronics campaigner Iza Kruszewska.

“If Samsung is serious about its green intentions, it needs to play catch up with competitors like Nokia and Sony Ericsson and Apple. People are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of what they buy; Samsung needs to understand, what is good for human health, and for the environment is also good for the company’s bottom line.”

A report last month from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) found that unless urgent action is taken, the e-waste crisis is set to worsen dramatically in developing countries.

Union and safety campaigners this year warned a cancer cluster is affecting young workers exposed to toxic chemicals at Samsung in Korea. A petition calling for Samsung to accept responsibility, compensate victims and remedy the health and safety problems is being circulated worldwide.

Supporters for the Health And Rights of People in the Semiconductor industry (SHARPs), the Korean Metal Workers’ Union (KMWU), Asian Network for the Rights Of Occupational Accident Victims (ANROAV) and International Campaign for Responsible Technology (ICRT) say: “Samsung denies all responsibility, and the Korean government has taken its side by denying compensation and even arresting and detaining the victims’ lawyer!”

In addition to the demands for justice for cancer victims and improvements in safety standards, the campaigners say Samsung Electronics “must disclose to the workers and the public the truth about the hazards of working in the semiconductor industry” and “must stop suppressing workers in their struggles for a safe and fair workplace.”

 Sign the SHARPs petition urging Samsung to act on occupational cancer risks.  
Global Unions cancer campaign.

The clarification came when the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) agreed to take steps to institutionalise worker and union involvement in workplace inspections conducted in workplaces using extremely hazardous substances. The move was prompted by a letter to EPA initiated by the New Jersey Work Environment Council.

“The old procedure was a remnant of the last Administration’s policy,” said Terence M O’Sullivan, president of the laborers’ union LIUNA. O’Sullivan co-signed the letter, along with a host of labour, environmental, health, occupational safety and health and advocacy organisations. 

“It is a positive sign that the EPA acted immediately to correct the problem after we pointed it out,” said O’Sullivan. “Now, in chemical facilities where Laborers work, we expect the agency to make sure our members and business agents have the same opportunity to offer safety and health suggestions and help evaluate corrective measures as does management. Not only will this enhance our members’ safety, it will help protect people who live or work near these facilities.”

The block on the shipment from Massachusetts firm CRT Recycling Inc. was made possible due to a tip off to the Indonesian environment ministry from the Basel Action Network (BAN). BAN volunteers had staked out CRT Recycling, a company that takes thousands of monitors every year from local US schools and governments. They photographed a container in the company’s yard being loaded with cathode ray tube (CRT) computer monitors. Using container numbers and online shipping company databases, they were able to track the container and its ship to the port of Semarang, Indonesia.

BAN says it contacted the Indonesian Ministry of Environment in November 2009, warning officials of the ship’s imminent arrival.

Indonesian authorities then seized the container and found it to be part of a consignment of nine from CRT Recycling. The containers were returned to the US, arriving in Boston port in February.  The shipment was returned to CRT Recycling by the authorities on 1 March.

CRT Recycling had employed a waste broker, Advanced Global Technologies Inc., which is listed on an official website of the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a registered e-waste exporter. In 2008, official oversight body the Government Accountability Office slammed the EPA for doing far too little to control exports of electronic waste from the United States.

“Indonesia is just one of many countries now being flooded by a tsunami of toxic electronic waste from the United States,” said BAN executive director Jim Puckett. “Even though our own government knows that the importation of toxic waste from the US is a violation of the laws of most countries of the world, our own EPA shamefully allows the global dumping to continue.”

BAN, together with the Electronic TakeBack Coalition, has been campaigning for a new law prohibiting hazardous e-waste exports from the United States, to bring it up to legal standards already in place in 32 other developed countries.

According to BAN, about 80 per cent of the e-waste consumers deliver to recyclers is not recycled by these companies at all but is simply shipped to countries in Asia and Africa to some of the world’s most impoverished communities where the waste is smashed, burned, melted or chemically treated in extremely dangerous backyard operations.

BAN warns businesses and consumers to hand over their old electronic equipment only to designated e-Stewards Recyclers that have been carefully screened and audited to ensure they do not export, use prison labour, or dump toxics in municipal landfills and incinerators.

WIND HARM Seven women repairing Gamesa turbine blades were warned not to have children for two years.

If you are one of those employed in the rapidly expanding green jobs sector, don’t assume your green employer is any less likely to exploit and endanger you. This is the message from Laurent Vogel, director of the European TUC’s health and safety research arm, HESA.

In an editorial in the latest issue of the organisation’s Just Transition newsletter, he cites the example of Spanish multinational Gamesa, “one of the finest examples of green capitalism, certified, labelled, and making much of its commitments to the environment, its ‘collaborators’ – in other words its staff – and ‘communities’. The company is posting enviable profits. Is it a success story for a win-win-win scenario?”

The answer, it seems, is “no”. According to Vogel: “On wind farms, upkeep and maintenance are outsourced. For example, Gamesa has hired the company Guascor to repair the blades at its wind farms. This involves injecting resin to seal the cracks, filing them down and then repainting them. Women were recruited from rural areas to do what the company described as ‘rapid and well-paid work’.”

The real story was less rosy. “A few months after having started work, several women were showing symptoms of poisoning: irregular periods, nosebleeds, headaches and so on,” writes Vogel. “Tipped off by the trade unions, the factories inspectorate investigated and discovered that these women were handling extremely dangerous substances and no protective measures whatever had been put in place. Seven women were advised by their doctors not to have children over the next two years because of the risk of birth defects!”

Vogel concludes: “Green jobs do not always involve such dramatic conditions, but private management of environmental protection activities does sacrifice working conditions for the sake of competitiveness. Whether it be health and safety or control over their working conditions, workers in green jobs often find themselves in very precarious conditions.

“The case of the Gamesa women illustrates an important aspect of the conflict between capitalism and nature: dangerous and dehumanising working conditions because of the division of labour and its hierarchical organisation.”

It’s a sentiment that will ring true with former UK employees of the Danish multinational wind turbine blade manufacturer Vestas Blades UK Ltd. The firm was fined £10,000 in June 2009 and ordered to pay £25,000 costs after 13 employees developed occupational dermatitis. The workers had suffered symptoms including severe itching and swellings and rashes on their arms, wrists, hands and face, caused by epoxy resins used in slapdash fashion in the production of the blades.

In July 2009, workers occupied the plant in a trade union campaign to keep the factory open after all the 500 plus staff were issued redundancy notices by the firm, which said it intended to transfer production to the US and China. After an August 2009 court ruling the last remaining workers were evicted from the Vestas factory.

BOMB PROOF Powys Council didn't bargain on people recycling explosives.

A Welsh council has warned people to be more responsible after an unexploded artillery shell, detonators and marine flares were dumped at its local authority recycling centres. Powys Council said it had been forced to call out Army bomb disposal experts and police three times during the last five months.

The shell was left next to a skip at a recycling centre in Ystradgynlais. No-one was hurt but the situation could have been different with a “large number” put at risk, said the council. The first incident happened on 27 September 2009 at Ystradgynlais household waste and recycling centre, when the artillery shell was left by a metal skip. The police were called and it was taken away by the Army.

Two weeks later on 9 October, detonators were left by a chemical waste bank at Machynlleth recycling centre. They were taken away and disposed of by a specialist contractor.  In the latest incident, on 24 January 2010, a marine flare was discovered at Brecon household waste and recycling centre. The police were called and it was disposed of by the Army.

Councillor Ken Harris, who is responsible for waste and sustainability on the council, said: “Not only is disposing of these dangerous items in this way putting a large number of people at great risk, the individuals responsible are breaking the law and could find themselves liable for prosecution under explosive and terrorism legislation.”

David Ives, 56, an employee of Veolia ES (UK) Ltd, formally known as Onyx UK Ltd, was collecting refuse outside a pub in Easington, near Aylesbury when the incident happened on 5 May 2004. Aylesbury Crown Court heard that a recycling bin fell from the bin hoist on the recycling lorry and landed on Mr Ives’ head, killing him.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) prosecuted Veolia ES (UK) Ltd, of Veolia House, Pentonville Road, London over the incident. The jury found the company guilty of criminal breaches of safety law. The company was fined £130,000 and ordered to pay costs of £220,000. It was the latest in a series of safety offences committed by Veolia to have attracted HSE enforcement action.

Commenting after the conclusion of the latest case, HSE inspector Dennis MacWilliam said: “This was an extremely tragic incident which has now left Mr Ives’ widow to continue life without a loving husband. It could have been avoided if only a few simple measures had been in place. Employers are legally required to make sure their equipment is regularly maintained and is fit for use by their workers. If the bin hoist on the recycling lorry had been maintained this incident would never have happened.”

While no mention of the conviction appears on the Veolia website, the company is less reticent when it comes to boasting about its safety successes. Just two weeks before the fatality conviction, a Veolia news release noted: “Veolia Environmental Services, the UK’s leading recycling and waste management company has achieved a major milestone in its environmental and safety performance. The company has achieved ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certification for all its 350 sites across the UK.”

HSE’s prosecutions database reveals that Veolia (ES) was fined for serious safety breaches that resulted in injuries to workers in both 2006 and 2007, one relating to serious fall injuries and the other to exposure to acid fumes.

The safety watchdog’s enforcement notices database reveals it was issued safety improvement notices on seven occasions in 2008, once in 2007 and on six occasions in 2006. HSE’s prohibition noticed database shows violations at Veolia ES were so serious that HSE put an immediate stop to work once in 2008 and on three occasions in 2006, at different Veolia sites.

ABOUT TIME Shorter working hours will be better for workers and the environment - but only if there is greater pay equity.

A shorter working week is set to become the norm, according to a report  from the new economics foundation (nef), a UK based think tank. Its study, 21 hours, forecasts a major shift in the length of the formal working week as a consequence of dealing with key economic, social and environmental problems.

The nef researchers say this can be seen as a positive opportunity, rather than a threat. According to nef, there are several forces pushing us towards a shorter working week:  lasting damage to the economy caused by the banking crisis, an increasingly divided society with too much over-work alongside too much unemployment, and an urgent need for deep cuts in environmentally damaging over-consumption.

These combine with a growing interest in people spending more time producing and delivering a share of their own goods and services – from co-produced care and neighbourhood-based activities, to food, clothing and other necessities, the report says.

“So many of us live to work, work to earn, and earn to consume. And our consumption habits are squandering the earth’s natural resources,” said Anna Coote, co-author of the report and head of social policy at nef.  “Spending less time in paid work could help us to break this pattern. We’d have more time to be better parents, better citizens, better carers and better neighbours. And we could even become better employees: less stressed, more in control, happier in our jobs and more productive. It is time to break the power of the old industrial clock, take back our lives and work for a sustainable future.”

The report says many people in the UK work longer hours than 30 years ago. Since 1981 two-adult households have added six hours – nearly a whole working day – to their combined weekly workload. At the same time, nearly 2.5 million people in the UK can’t find jobs. Cutting labour to save money without changing working hours means some are burdened with overwork while others lose their livelihoods.

The report  authors argue that a much shorter working week could help to tackle a range of urgent and closely related problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life. It would enable many more people to join the workforce and allow for measures to reduce damaging levels of inequality.

They say the nine-to-five, five-day working week is an irrelevant relic of the industrial revolution. The shift to a shorter working week would mean stress would be reduced because employees would no longer need to juggle paid-employment with home-based responsibilities and family commitments, the report concludes. It adds there is evidence that people who work shorter hours are more productive, hour for hour.

To make the plan workable would require a range of actions, including measures to make earnings more equal through a higher minimum wage and restraints on top pay.

An investigation by The Ecologist last year concluded long hours are bad for workers and should be curtailed for the sake of the workforce and the environment. The 1 September 2009 edition of the environmental magazine noted: “There’s something wonky with the way we work. Those of us with jobs are stressed when we work, and fatigued when we’re not.”

POORLY INSULATED A government programme to insulate homes led to deaths after unscrupulous operators were left to take deadly shortcuts, ACTU's Sharan Burrow said.

The Australian government has ordered a huge safety audit of every home that was fitted with foil insulation as part of a nationwide green homes plan. The insulation programme, which forms part of a government economic stimulus package, was suspended after it was linked to a number of worker electrocutions and heat exhaustion deaths.

The Energy Efficient Homes Package has been dogged by safety concerns since the rebate began in July 2009, with unions warning inexperienced and unscrupulous operators were rushing to cash in on the scheme. National union federation ACTU called in November 2009 for the scheme to be halted, until the shortcomings with training of workers and licensing of operators were addressed. The union demand came after three deaths, but was withdrawn after government assurances that new procedures would protect workers.       

However, the electrocution of another young worker last week shows the new procedures were not sufficient, said ACTU president Sharan Burrow. “The Home Insulation Program has not been up to scratch and four young Australians have paid for its failings with their lives. From the outset, unions have called for improved safety standards, better training to ensure workers are able to identify risks such as faulty wiring, and a bigger role for qualified tradespeople such as electricians to oversee the work.

“Any recently installed insulation that does not meet acceptable standards of quality, workmanship or safety to the public needs to be re-examined. Shonky operators that have put lives at risk and ripped off the taxpayer should be prosecuted and driven out of the industry.”

Ms Burrow added: “Unions recognise that this and other federal government stimulus and infrastructure investment programmes are important to save jobs and help the economy recover from the Global Financial Crisis. But unions have said from the outset that businesses that get stimulus funding from the government must respect the rights of their workers, provide adequate training and ensure a safe workplace.”

The national insulation programme was a key plank of the Rudd government’s environmental strategy, and offered rebates to householders who wanted to conserve energy. But the metallic foil used in older houses has already killed four workers who were installing it, the most recent incident coming last week when a 25-year-old contractor was electrocuted in the roof of a home in far north Queensland.

It is believed the metallic foil came into contact with electricity cables, making the roof cavity live. An interim government survey has suggested there could also be a risk to some householders after the system is installed.

MATRIX RECYCLED This UK e-waste recycling giant recirculated mercury through the workplace via a defective ventilation system, resulting in gross exposures to the workforce.

One of the UK’s largest recycling firms and its director have been fined a total of £145,000 for “shocking” safety breaches that exposed workers to mercury fumes.

Twenty employees of Electrical Waste Recycling Group Ltd (EWR), formerly known as Matrix Direct Recycling Ltd, had levels of mercury in their system above UK guidance levels at the site in Huddersfield, and five of them showed extremely high levels following the exposure in the 10 months between October 2007 and August 2008.

Several workers had reported ill health as a result, including a pregnant worker who was concerned her unborn baby was at risk.

The firm recycles electrical equipment including fluorescent light tubes containing mercury and TV sets and monitors containing lead.

Bradford Crown Court heard that ventilation problems at the plant meant employees were being exposed to potentially harmful emissions from both substances. Mercury vapour was released when the lighting tubes were crushed. Because carbon filters were not fitted on the purpose-designed machine, the contaminated air was itself recycled and pumped back into the premises. One of the ducts pumped contaminated air directly into the office area.

The firm is involved in litigation with the American suppliers of the processing equipment over the missing carbon filters which would have stopped any mercury emissions, the court was told.

On 5 February 2010, EWR was fined £140,000 and ordered to pay £35,127 costs after pleading guilty to criminal safety breaches, including three separate breaches of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002, and one breach of the Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002. 

Company director Craig Thompson, 38, was also fined £5,000 after pleading guilty to a criminal breach of the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002. The judge decided not to disqualify Thompson from being a director. The court was told he had financial difficulties, including debts of £80,000.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the UK government’s workplace safety enforcement agency, issued the company five Improvement Notices and one Prohibition Notice – putting an immediate stop to work -  in relation to the incident. Although the company’s own daily tests identified high levels of mercury at the premises, the closure of an oven used to dispose of the chemical failed to solve the problem and by August 2008 HSE had issued the prohibition and improvement notices against the company.

Prior to the prohibition notice, HSE staff had tested the urine of 35 employees at the premises and found 20 had higher than recommended levels of mercury.

Barrister Robert Smith QC, for the companies, said since the prohibition notice was served the firm had spent £350,000 installing an effective emission filter system and a further £281,000-a-year was being spent on additional managers and supervisors. He told the court tests on staff conducted in January 2010 showed all were under the recommended levels.

After the hearing HSE inspector Jeanne Morton said: “This is a shocking case involving a large number of employees, many of them young and vulnerable, who were suddenly faced with the worrying possibility of damage to their long-term health. The risks associated with handling toxic substances like mercury have been known for generations, so it is all the more unacceptable that something like this has happened. The company failed to see the risks created by their recycling work and failed to develop effective plans for safe working. They also did nothing to check their workers’ health after exposure.

“Workers have a right to expect a reasonable level of protection in the workplace, and employers have a legal duty to provide it.”

Max Folkett, site inspector for the Environment Agency, added: “We have worked closely with HSE and other organisations during the investigation which led to this prosecution. Electrical Waste Recycling Group Limited requires an environmental permit from us for the recovery and processing of hazardous waste and we routinely inspect the site to check the company is complying with the permit. We suspended the permit following this incident in August 2008, removing the risk of mercury escaping from the site, because of our concerns the operation posed a serious risk of pollution from mercury.”

Toxic metals use, far from declining, appears to be staging a comeback. Lead use has increased dramatically in recent years. And increased production of electronic equipment worldwide is set to see the use of lead soar over the next decade.

The long term downward trend in mercury production stalled in 2006 and 2007. Latest figures, published in the 2009 edition of the authoritative World Mineral Production, show 1.4 million kilograms were produced in each of these years, a figure the report suggests is an underestimate.

CAPTIVE VICTIMS Firefighters respond to a fire at the e-waste recycling facility at Atwater Prison, California - one of the for-profit prisons whose e-waste recycling programmes were found to have exposed inmates and workers to illegally high levels of toxins.

US prisoners and staff supervisors were exposed for years to excessive levels of toxic heavy metals during computer recycling operations, a government workplace health research agency has confirmed.

The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) report, however, says the absence of recordkeeping inside the prisons, made it impossible to confirm any health problems from these illegal levels of exposure.

The December 2009 NIOSH report was submitted to the Justice Department Office of Inspector General as part of its system-wide review of all the federal prison e-waste recycling centers. This NIOSH report covered conditions at federal prisons at Elkton in Ohio, Texarkana in Texas, Marianna in Florida and Atwater in California and must be publicly displayed at each institution. Campaign organisation PEER – Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility – obtained a copy of the report and in January 2010 published it on its website.

The NIOSH report says recycling operations at the for-profit prisons involves inmates breaking up computer components, often with hammers. NIOSH concluded that, for years, these recycling operations lacked adequate containment to prevent workers from being coated with dangerous amounts of lead, cadmium and other heavy metals inside the hardware.

NIOSH says prison industry managers failed to assess risks adequately prior to work starting, failed to identify potential hazards with the result that “adequate hazard controls were not established for several years at some BOP [Bureau of Prison] institutions”; and failed to provide any “training, guidance or oversight needed to address health hazards associated with electronics recycling” to staff and inmate workers.

NIOSH found that prison staff and inmates had been exposed to illegally high levels of toxins for years at all of the facilities it inspected except the one at Marianna, Florida. This report is part of the Justice Department Inspector General (IG) investigation, begun in 2006, into occupational and environmental compliance of prison computer recycling operations and the accountability of managers who ignored previous reports of problems.

PEER executive director Jeff Ruch commented: “It is outrageous that federal prisons have been illegally undercutting legitimate recyclers to the potential detriment of their own staff and the inmates in their custody.”