In Internationalist Notes #7 (old Canada only series), we published an item entitled Beryllium Alert! on the very real threat of deadly berylliosis at the Horne smelter in Rouyn-Noranda. The Horne plant recycles 100,000 tons of beryllium-laden material every year. Beryllium is classified as a human carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and studies have shown that 40% of people have a genetic marker that has been associated with the disease. To our knowledge, during the period leading up to the June 18, 2002 start of the on-going strike at the smelter, over 20 workers were retired from work by the Quebec Health and Safety Commission (the CSST) because they had contracted chronic berylliosis. Now, all these workers have been ordered to go back to their work posts at the end of the strike. So the Quebec social-democrat-led government and the bosses obviously don't care that they might very well be condemning these workers and many more to come, to death by greed and active neglect.

This brings me to reflect on an article published last year in the Los Angeles Times. The article reported that:

During production of the 1997 movie 'Mimic', American Humane Association representatives wandered through the Los Angeles set, ensuring that a herd of cockroaches was well taken care of. Licensed animal handlers were to follow state and federal anti-cruelty laws designed to protect the insects, which had been trained to swirl around actress Mira Sorvino's feet. The roaches had to be fed at a certain time. They could only work a few hours each day. They could not be harmed.

Obviously, these cockroaches were probably much more comfortably treated than most of their kind usually is. However, one can only be struck by the splendid subtleties of this capitalist system where 'cockroach proletarians' are quite clearly better protected by 'animal labour legislation' than human beings are by democratic state labour institutions. Then again, there is something to be said of the relationship between vermin and capitalists. Are they not both parasites? Even though we are all for saving the whales, I suppose Bertolt Brecht was onto something when he wrote: "Beware of animal lovers, they'll have you lead a dog's life." But Marx was more on target when in an exchange with Kugelman, he spoke of: "the wolves, the swine and the dirty dogs of the bourgeoisie".