From Labour Press: USA: http://laborpress.org

international | environment | other press

Tuesday November 17, 2009 10:04

by Eugene Mc Cartan - Communist Party of Ireland

cpoi at eircom dot net

James Connolly House, 43 East Essex St, Temple Bar, Dublin 2

01 - 6708707 or 0879733414

Brazilian Workers Charge Shell with "Environmental Crimes"

Brazilian WorkersLeft to right: Rasteiro, Cascone, de Lima

(November 12, New York City) -- Brazilian chemical workers addressing a New
York audience of students, academics, and union members said that the Shell
Oil Company, one of the world's largest, had willfully ignored
life-threatening exposures to its workers who handled hazardous chemicals in
South America.

COMMUNIST PARTY OF IRELAND.

A chara.
Please see below information in relation to Shell activities in Brazil. It is very useful info should get a wide a circulation as possible.

Eugene Mc Cartan

Brazilian Workers Charge Shell with "Environmental Crimes"

Brazilian WorkersLeft to right: Rasteiro, Cascone, de Lima

(November 12, New York City) -- Brazilian chemical workers addressing a New
York audience of students, academics, and union members said that the Shell
Oil Company, one of the world's largest, had willfully ignored
life-threatening exposures to its workers who handled hazardous chemicals in
South America.

Antonio de Marco Rasteiro, a former worker for SHELL/BASF in Brazil and the
Coordinator of the Association of Workers Exposed to Chemical Substances
there, was accompanied by Brazilian union attorney Vinicius Cascone, and
Gloria Nozella de Lima, Director of Health for the Unified Chemical Workers
Union for the region of Campinas.

With Cascone as translator, de Marco Rasteiro told his audience at the
Center for Worker Education about the consequences of Shell's decision, in
1977, to continue to use chemicals at its Brazilian pesticide plant that had
been banned in the U.S. in 1975. They included organochlorines Aldrin,
Bidrin, Dieldrin, and Endrin. These chemicals, among others, he said,
adversely affected the health of 844 workers at the plant, resulting in the
deaths of 50 and numerous cases of life-threatening illnesses. De Marco
Rasteiro himself has been diagnosed with hypertension, hearing loss, and
prostate and lung cancers.

In a video that accompanied the lecture, another former SHELL worker, Mauro
Bandeira, told how a man he worked with at the facility was told he was
doing "great," by a doctor. He died ten days later of stomach cancer. When
asked at the lecture who this doctor was, de Marco Rasteiro told the
audience," He was hired by Shell."

Attorney Cascone said that organizing efforts are underway to bring together
associations that represent victims of environmental crimes. David
Kotelchuck, a NYCOSH board member who attended the lecture, said workers in
the United States faced similar challenges in the 1950's and 60's, before
the creation of OSHA. "[The Brazilian workers] are now trying to get to the
level that workers here have achieved," he said.

The former employees are currently fighting to make Shell take
responsibility for the damage to their health. The process of obtaining
treatment through the public health option in Brazil is, according to all
three speakers, so slow that lives can be lost during the wait. It also
does not cover all of their medical expenses, forcing them to pay out of
their own pockets for expensive medicines.

Despite the debilitating state of his health, de Marco Rasteiro says he will
not stop fighting. "We want our health," he said. "Justice must be done."

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From Labour Press: USA: http://laborpress.org