September 2024
From BC Informa Nov 07
Submitted by stevein7 on Tue, 2007-12-04 16:42
Deaths at work
In Colombia the mining sector is the setting for ever more dramatic events. On the 13th of October at Suarez, a gold mine collapsed, trapping 50 workers 21 were killed, 26 seriously injured.
The plant was ordered to be closed by the government at the beginning of September, declaring it dangerous and a health hazard. But suddenly the apparent discovery of new deposits of gold brought many of the town’s inhabitants to work in the mine, even though an imminent collapse was almost certain.
The extreme poverty in which the proletariat of the town lives is the real cause of so many people working in the mine in inhuman conditions and where above all women are often victims of serious accidents.
Even in Italy where the poverty is not so extreme as in South America, deaths at work are a daily occurrence, usually ignored by the media or used for their own ends by various national politicians.
Every year they officially calculate 1 300 deaths at work without counting the informal sector or cases where death is not directly related to the involved occupation. Those sectors most at risk are where black market work is common: building and agriculture, but also transport where mortality rates are very high
Very high also are the figures relating to accidents at work, more than 960.000 per year according to official sources. Amongst immigrants, the average percentage rate of reported injuries is 11,71%, whereas for deaths, it is 12,03%: the substantial difference is an anomaly given that for Italian workers the percentage rate for injuries is far higher than that for deaths.
So it is very probable that a good proportion of those injuries are not claimed upon. If one calculates the number of deaths for the number of hours worked, the worst area is Molise, followed by Basilicata and Calabria and the southern regions in general where informal sector work, an old practice of national capitalism to lower the cost of labour, is very widespread.
Economic crisis fuels unsustainable work rates and can only accentuate this phenomenon even when workers have regular contracts. this is another sad demonstration of how the interests of bourgeois and proletariat are ever more incompatible.
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ANTI-FASCISM AGAINST THE WORKING CLASS
PUBLIC MEETING AND DISCUSSION
On 30 July riots broke out across the UK which targeted Muslim neighbourhoods and places sheltering migrants, following a stabbing in Southport the day before. The riots were fuelled by fascist groups and far right websites spreading the conspiracy theory that the attacker was a Muslim asylum seeker.
Decades of racist propaganda from mainstream news sources, which blame immigrants for workers’ decline in their standard of living, have led to many thinking that immigration into Britain is the cause of reduced wages, homelessness, a collapsing health service, failing schools etc. rather than increased exploitation of the working class and capitalism’s economic crisis.
The response to this from capitalism’s political left has been to organise against fascism, with national demonstrations of the ‘great and good’ against the riots and against racism in defence of democratic freedoms. But fascism and democracy are simply strategies of the capitalist class to continue exploiting us. Strategies they use to recruit us to fight their wars. Organising specifically against fascism, amounts to supporting one section of the capitalist class against another. It is still in favour of the capitalist system. What we need is to oppose the entire capitalist system through the broader class struggle, leading to the eventual overthrow of capitalism itself.
While other approaches to anti-fascism involve small groups, engaged in physical confrontations with fascists, it is an approach that similarly offers no solutions to a system that breeds racism.
We argue that only the end of capitalism can put an end to poverty, misery and racism and only the working class can achieve this.
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4 dec 07 on Yahoo news
4 dec 07 on Yahoo news
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) - Tens of thousands of mineworkers downed tools in South Africa on Tuesday in a one-day strike over safety standards, accusing their bosses of putting lives at risk for the sake of profits.
In the first stoppage by the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) since the end of apartheid, production was affected at mines nationwide with some owners saying only a small percentage of the normal workforce had reported for duty.
Many of the stayaway workers gathered for rallies organised by the NUM as part of the drive to cut the level of injuries and fatalities in South Africa's mines, where around 200 people die every year.
"We are dying in mines but we get nothing. We want change, we want to work safe," said 26-year-old Thembisile Marrent, an employee at the Kloof goldmine in northern Mpumalanga province, at a rally in downtown Johannesburg.
Many of the protesters in Johannesburg carried banners saying the owners of the country's 700 mines were "dripping in blood" as they pursued profit at the expense of safety.
"Things have improved a bit but they are still pushing production more than safety," said Toko Molale, who has been working at a platinum mine for the last 13 years.
NUM secretary general Frans Baleni told AFP mining was "not a normal environment, yet the wages are very very low. Safety is compromised because the workers are trying to get bonuses".
"We are not here for a wage increase but to raise the fact that we are dying underground," he said.
At the end of the rally, the union handed over a list of demands to the country's chamber of mines and the government's department of energy and mines which demanded more prosecutions of negligent bosses.
"As far back as year 2000 no employer has ever been prosecuted or even charged by the directorate of public prosecutions (DPP) anywhere in the country, hence the rising levels of accidents and fatalities," said the petition.
Concerns over safety reached a new peak in early October when some 3,200 miners were stuck underground in a Harmony gold mine southwest of Johannesburg for more than 24 hours after a lift cable snapped.
The incident led President Thabo Mbeki to order a security audit of the mines in the country.
Mining, which generated 195 billion rand (28.5 billion dollars, 19.5 billion euros) in local sales last year, is the largest foreign exchange earner for South Africa and brought in a total of 355 billion rand from exports.
In my point of view an other
In my point of view an other confirmation that even the once so celebrated ( by leftist ) ANC of Mandela is just one of many parties throughout the ruling class ( slave itself of capitalistic need of profits ) exercise his own power.
ANC
ANC
Cleishbotham
IBRP
Agreed with No Nick on the ANC. The CWO compiled a pamphlet based on articles in Workers' Voice on the fifteen years of the struggle against apartheid in which we constantly attacked the ANC and the reformist idea that democracy would solve the problems of the South African working class. Now the illusion is that the replacement of Mbeki with his former Vice President will change everything. Only the most desperate in the townships can believe a word of this...
7 dec 07
7 dec 07
BEIJING - The death toll in a massive gas explosion at a coal mine in northern China rose to 105 Friday, the government's Xinhua News Agency said, making it the nation's second deadliest mining disaster this year.
Rescuers from among 15 crews sent to the mine in Shanxi province's Hongtong county were pumping out deadly carbon monoxide from a shaft in hopes of finding survivors or recovering additional bodies, the central government's State Administration of Workplace Safety said on its Web site.
The exact number of miners underground at the time of Wednesday's accident was still unclear. Citing mine officials, Xinhua on Friday raised the figure to about 120 from the previously reported 111.
State broadcaster CCTV said the mine owner and its manager had been detained by police for questioning. The mine's bank accounts had been frozen.
Reports said managers delayed reporting the accident until early Thursday morning, wasting crucial hours when coordinated rescue efforts could be most effective.
Just 15 miners fled to safety, suffering only minor injuries.
In a sign of government frustration at the continuing high death toll in China's mines, safety administration chief Li Yizhong flew to the mine late on Thursday to inspect aboveground facilities and help lead rescue efforts, the administration Web site said.
Li, who has pushed to reduce China's high numbers of industrial deaths through shaming officials and demanding accountability, authorized additional resources for the rescue and "strengthened rescue command," it said.
The administration said the mine's No. 2 shaft had been cleared by some of the 15 rescue teams sent from the nearby coal industry center of Linfen. However, heavy carbon monoxide concentrations were hampering rescue efforts in the No. 9 shaft where other miners were believed to have been working, forcing workers to ventilate it mechanically before entering.
Work safety officials reached by telephone in Linfen and at provincial government headquarters said they had no updated information.
The mine, owned and run by the county government, was reportedly licensed to produce 210,000 tons of coal per year.
China's coal mines average 13 deaths a day from fires, explosions and floods, making them the world's deadliest. In August, 181 miners died when heavy rains flooded two mines in eastern Shandong province.
Many of the accidents are blamed on mine owners who disregard safety rules and fail to invest in required ventilation, fire control and other equipment.
Despite repeated safety crackdowns, the sizzling economy's voracious appetite for coal to generate electricity provides ample motivation for many operators to cut corners in pursuit of production bonuses.
Red red wine, stay close to me now. All i can do i've done, but memories won't go, no memories won't go."
7-12-1907: Monohagan,West
7-12-1907: Monohagan,West Viginia , Usa: more than 300 miners died in the mine explosion, many other injured. The worst disaster into the american mining history.
Most of them were poor italian migrants, very few speaking english and "illegal" on a large number. At that time the voices around said that the death toll was much higher, since the people missing were many more. Tha autorithies scared by possible riots.
The exact number of deaths isn't known until now.
nothing has changed since a century ago as showed above.
Or, better, only the location of such disasters. CLASS DISASTERS.
into heart of imperialism such thing happens on a smaller scale ( saddest consolation );
6-12-2007, Torino, Italy. An explosion into a steelworks - the 2nd into last 3 years - has killed 3 workers, injuring many others.
One of worst serial killers of history is still free; CAPITALISM.
help us to kill him !
leaflet
leaflet
here below a translation made by me of the leaflet about yesterday's events.
Serial killer
An other tragedy on the workplace, at the ThysenKrupp steelworks: 3 casualties, many other injured even heavily.
And here we are the same old, foreseen, tedious bla, bla ,bla of the republic’s president, pope, politicians, trade unionist, various opinionist, firm owners etc. etc.
At thi time we have more visibility , despite the usual 4 columns deep inside the chronicles’s newspaper, maybe ‘cause it has happened at a big and known plant.
“It’s unacceptable, it mustn’t happen any more” they say.
The usual hypocritical sentences about the safety measure missing due saving need, the exceeding work hours to balance the low wages ( workers dead were at their 12th hour of work consecutively, after their normal duty was over for just 4 hour ), an human error, the unluck, etc. etc.
As always. As last time. As the next one.
The only ones who don’t speak are their mates; the only who should.
Look at this: where the wages are higher the deaths are directly lower...
Comrades, we dead every year in number of 1400 simply ‘cause we’re a goods who cost so few on the market that our buyers – the masters - don’t care if we breaks od die.
Sad reality, isn’t true ?? Of course.
That’s the daily reality of most of working class around the world – some bilions of people. Therefore is we really want crackdown this situation we must discover again the istinct and the proud to feel ourselves as part of same international class.
Our power consist the weight of our number, not of the political/trade unionist stepfather whom we delegate the defense of our interests.( moreover with always less results as clearly showed).
Better, namely useful, safety measures and higher, namely dignified, wages must be imposed throughout wildcat strikes, picket lines etc etc to the Masters.
The contrary of that usually do the trade unions. As well Cgil/cisl/uil friend/slave of masters as well the indipendent unions who remain caught by the legalitarian framework of the many against-strike laws ( we’re not interested if with good belief or not ).
This is the only language they understand: Higher costs for their goods.
We know, this is only the first step we have to do. We don’t forget that we have to overthrow the caplitalism in order to save us and the whole humanity from that serial killer called Capital.
We want the Struggle, not Mournings !!
As far as we won’t undestrand it the only possible alternative is the present
made by degradement, resignation, slavery.
P.C. Internazionalista – Battaglia Comunista
work kills
work kills
The original is in spanish
Un trabajo estresante tiene un efecto biológico directo en el organismo y aumenta el riesgo de sufrir enfermedades cardíacas.
Un nuevo estudio afirma que las personas menores de 50 años con un empleo de mucha presión tiene casi 70% más riesgo de desarrollar dichas enfermedades que los que viven libren de estrés.
Esto se debe a que los trabajadores estresados muestran signos de cambios bioquímicos importantes en su organismo.
"El sistema nervioso tiene una directa relación sobre el trabajo a nivel miocárdico y cardiovascular" dijo a BBC Ciencia el doctor Oscar Alvarado, presidente de la Sociedad Interamericana de Cardiología
The first couple of lines say;
A stressful job has a direct biological effect on the organism and increases the risk of suffering heart disease.
A new study states that people under 50 with a high pressured job have almost 70% more risk of developing such illnesses than those free of stress.
*****
How many people have lost years of life precisely due to capitalism? Perhaps they didn't die in a mine or on a building site, but they dies young because of work. And even if we live to a ripe old age, how much of our time is wasted on work which enriches only the capitalists?
And what quality of life do we have outside of the workplace?
Yes, capitalism is a serial killer.