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Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group (MAVSG) will be commemorating International Workers Memorial Day to “Remember the Dead and Fight for the Living” on Friday, 28th April at the Pier Head, Liverpool at 11.00 am followed by a meeting at the Unite the Union building, Islington at 1.00pm.
The memorial service will start with the Socialist Singers Choir followed by a wreath laying ceremony and a minute’s silence with a Pipers Lament. Coaches will take people to a meeting at the Unite Building with several speakers. Tea, Coffee and traditional Scouse will be served.
Speakers will include Mr. Bill Lawrence; Secretary of the UK Construction Safety Campaign and a member of the European Commission; Social Dialogue for Construction, who has spent five years tracking the global asbestos trade and will be naming the companies with London links who deal in the export of asbestos banned in more than 50 countries worldwide.
The event has been organised by MAVSG with the support of 9 national trade unions and other campaigners on health and safety at work and the voluntary sector.
Bill Lawrence said:
“I am appalled at the indifference the politicians of the asbestos producing countries and the purveyors of this killer dust treat with impunity the poor workers who have no choice in having to use it because the governments in their own countries only have the same distain and indifference towards their health and that of their families”
John Flanagan, Associate Director for the Merseyside Asbestos Victims Support Group commented
“Given the real cost in poor health and safely at work which causes 140 deaths a day in the UK according to the Hazards Campaign we are still a long way off being a civilised society where workers lives are valued above profit margins.”
He added:
“Latest research by Robin Howie, an Edinburgh based occupational hygienist shows official predictions for mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos, has ‘vastly underestimated’ the death toll from the disease because they fail to take account of future improvements in life expectancy and he forecast that between 2014 and 2049, there will be a total of 130,000 male mesothelioma deaths in Britain, compared to around 50,000 between 1969 and 2014”
Concluding he said:
“Given these predictions are only for the UK , news that British based companies are dealing in asbestos exports and making profits out peoples death and misery is an affront to common decency.
MAVSG calls on all political parties in the General Election campaign to give an assurance that, if elected to office, these companies will be forced to abandon their pursuit of profit from the misery and death caused by asbestos”
Note:
Deaths at work are unreported in terms of their true figure by the HSE and media, with the death toll actually being estimated by Hazards campaign group to be in the range of 140,00 per year; with the number of people dieing from work related illness being around 50,00! Those made ill by work is five times greater than HSE estimate, at least 6 million!
Source: MAVSG / Hazards
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