FEATURE ‘We are in a sense all citizens of Bhopal... The deadly leak of mythyl isocyanate gas from a Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal, India, has at last count killed some 3,000, and left a further 150,000 people injured. This catastrophe poses, in tragic relief, the larger question of continued human survival under an economic regime in which the pursuit of private profit can lead to such devastating public consequences. The roll of the dead at Bhopal, as huge as it is, is only the tip of an emerging global disaster. We are all, ina sense, citizens of Bhopal. In North America, as much as _anywhere, the effluvium of negligent corporate concerns is creeping, seeping and oozing into our living space at a rate which scientists now say threatens us with ex- tinction. And the awful truth, about which the media has been so circumspect, is that some people have been reaping enormous profits while poisoning our environment. That capitalism is the hidden villain behind the Bhopal tragedy can hardly be doubted. It was not an isolated incident, but part of an expanding pattern of chemical negligence and* abuse. Even the U.S. ambassador in India seemed aware of the systematic implications of the disaster when he groaned: ‘‘The Communists will have a field day over this. They'll go with it for weeks’’. That, of course, is a glib evasion. Yet underlying it is an uneasy awareness that uncontrolable private enter- prise bears a growing share of the blame for such accidents. In their headlong rush to escape even the relatively lax standards imposed at home by the Reagan administra- tion, multinational corporations are shifting many of their most hazardous operations to the Third World. In this they enjoy bargaining clout that can only be de- scribed as blackmail: ifimpoverished countries want any ' investment at all they must provide the right ‘‘climate”’, relax restrictions, play ball. It comes as no surprise, then, to learn that the Bhopal facility, in which Union Carbide owns the controlling interest, lacked the computerized warning system used at a similar Union Carbide plant in Institute, West Vir- ginia. It also had only a single, manual alarm system, instead of the elaborate four-stage automatic system re- quired in the U.S. It is a continuing scandal that products which are un- acceptable to North American consumers are frequently dumped on Third World markets. Many dangerous drugs and chemicals are in this category. The birth con- trol agent Depo-Provera, for instance, banned by even Reagan’s Food and Drug Administration, is aggressively sold throughout the underdeveloped world by the U.S. multinational Upjohn Corp. News Analysis Fred Weir The World Health Organization fought a long action against Nestlé because of that corporation’s energetic efforts to persuade Third World mothers to switch from breast-feeding to Nestles infant formula — mixed, in most cases, with contaminated water. Big textile manu- facturers continue, despite the outrage of some inter- national agencies, to peddle in poor countries clothing treated with a carcinogenic flame retardant. The misapplication of pesticides in the Third World is an annual atrocity. Oxfam figures show that in 1982 alone there were 10,000 deaths and 375,000 injuries directly attributable to pesticide poisoning in poor countries. Though the people of the Third World suffer dispro- portionately, it cannot be said that any of us are immune from the long-term consequences of the corporations’ . short-term quest for profit. Spectacular Bhopal-type catastrophes do occur in de- veloped countries, but thanks to the superior mobility and medical resources of our society they have been — so far — more rapidly contained. In 1979 the derailment of several railroad cars laden with deadly chlorine gas forced the evacuation of about 200,000 people in Mississauga, Ontario. Last month, a pesticide plant in Middleport, New York, owned by FMC Corp. began to leak methyl isocyanate — the same toxin that wreaked such havoc at Bhopal — into the surrounding community. Six hundred children from a nearby school had to be hastily evacuated; thirty of them were rushed to hospital with severe eye irritation. The list of such near-disasters is frighteningly long. More serious, however, is the steady, cumulative seepage of toxic chemicals into our living environment. More than 66,000 different compounds are routinely used in industry, but fewer than 2 per cent of them have been adequately tested. According to” the _U:S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than 90 billion pounds of industrial wastes are dumped every year in the United States; only 10 per cent of these are considered ““properly’’ disposed of. There are more than 50,000 toxic waste sites through- out North America, mostly in the heavily populated in- dustrial areas. Many of them are already proven to be leaking, releasing deadly poisons into soil, ground water and river systems. Canadians were recently shocked to — learn that toxic chemicals from landfill sites belonging to Hooker Electro Chemical Corp., and Occidental Chemi- — cal, are seeping into the Niagara River. They are gradual- ~ ly turning the water of Lake Ontario — upon which some — three million Canadians depend — into an industrial- — - sludge cocktail. Business has made, and continues to make, huge — profits while creating this ecological disaster. A devil- — may-care attitude toward dumping may have saved the. big corporations a fortune over the years, but itis acost ~ that must ultimately be borne, and paid with interest, by the public. ; In Institute, West Virginia, the foul stench that ema- — nates from Union Carbide’s pesticide plant is referred to — by the townspeople as ‘‘the smell of jobs’’. That rather — neatly summarizes the supreme position held by the — corporations in our society: they control the wealth and — the sources of employment; they set the rules. Working — people have little choice. Would you rather be poisoned, — or out of work? Or both. In the worst case, a corporation can go bankrupt, and — thus absolve itself of liability. But who will bankroll the staggering cost of cleanup, now estimated to-be tens of ~ billions of dollars? Who-will pay medical bills, or com- — pensate for the declining quality of life in a polluted © world? 7 In our society, the pursuit of profit is a private affair. The consequences, however, are social. That contra- diction is driving us toward unparallelled catastrophe. — The tragedy at Bhopal is a warning. A warning not — only directed against the hazards inherent in modern industry, but more specifically against a system of ex- — ploitation and abuse, the bottom-line and the quick-fix. And the lesson may be getting across. : ‘Most people up and down this valley associate chem- ical odors with payday’’, a housewife living next door to — Union Carbide’s Institute plant recently told reporters, ‘But Bhopal has left us worried sick about what they’re mixing up over there. You have to wonder if you’re sniffing death’’. Labor in gear for 35-hour work week By MIKE PHILLIPS OTTAWA — Acting on its mandate : from the last convention, the Canadian Labor Congress brought together -the leading officers of the trade union movement in the country, Dec. 6-7 to get labor in gear on the fight for the 35-hour work week. The two-day meeting was a closed- os door session for the trade union leader- ship to compare notes on the progress already made toward this goal, as well as to get a fix on the size and scope of the job ahead The gathering heard a spokesman of the German metalworkers union report on their epic fight earlier this year which a the work week by an hour and a The Canadian perspective on the topic was presented by UAW Canadian leader Bob White, and Pierre Samson, presi- dent of the Public Service Alliance of Canada. _ ‘ In its weekly newsletter, PSAC re- ports Samson told the gathering that 69 per cent of the Canadian public believe the shorter work week with no loss in pay should be introduced as a measure to share jobs around and cut into our per- ennial double digit unemployment rate. ‘*The question to be studied is how we force Canadian employers to hire more of our brothers and sisters rather than 8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, JANUARY 9, 1985: increasing their own profits, or in the public sector, reducing their own ex- penditures and budgetary deficits’, the newsletter reports: - ‘He stressed that labor’s campaign for Shorter work time should focus on crea- ting full-time jobs. The fight for shorter work time was _one of the key elements in the 9-point Action Plan to Promote Jobs and Justice adopted last May at the CLC’s Montreal convention. The Action Plan, which also commit- ted the congress to organize a country- wide March For Jobs, and a lobbying campaign at all government levels for full employment policies, called on the CLC and its affiliates, labor councils and pro- vincial federations to develop a co- ordinated collective bargaining and polit- ical campaign for reduced work time. The fight for reduced work time could take many forms, the convention noted, from shorter hours with no loss in pay, early retirement with improved pen- sions, a legislated ban on overtime, longer vacation time, more statutory “holidays and whatever other measures hecessary to bring Canadian workers closer to their goal. Since the convention the congress has targeted on the 35 hour work week as the immediate goal. The Dec. 6 conference settled on a double-barreled strategy that embodies the demands outlined in the CLC Action Plan. It will include on the one hand, an extensive internal trade union informa- tion and education campaign, with the CLC acting as a clearing house for mate- rials generated by its affiliates, and issu- ing its own, with a public campaign di- rected at the general public — both drives linking the need for shorter work _ time without pay loss as a means of tack- ling the unemployment crisis. On the other hand, it was agreed that affiliates will target specific corpora- tions, and/or industrial sectors for co- -ordinated. collective bargaining cam- paigns with the CLC’s assistance to. begin driving toward the 35-hour work week. The Canadian Union of Postal Work- ers, the Communications Workers, and the United Electrical Workers have al- ready indicated they will be making re- duced work time a top priority in their forthcoming negotiations. Also advancing the issue as a key bar- gaining demand is the UAW, although it was unable, in part because of internal conflicts with the international, to score any significant gains in shorter work time during the recent auto talks. The labor movement will be watching both the CWC and CUPW closely in the — new year. The communications workers _ are focussing the issue around their de- _ mand for job security in talks with Bell — Canada, one of the country’s largest — monopolies. CUPW, which has already broken new ground on such questions as tech change and in’ securing maternity leave, might be in a position to make another breakthrough, particularly since _ it has made some advances already in shortening the work week. UE president Dick Barry says it is cru- cial there be common agreement in the trade union movement to get shorter work time on the collective bargaining — agenda. “‘It’s going to be a hard fight. — First — we have to show our members the need for it, then we have to go to the general public.”’ To succeed, the battle will also have to take place in a major industry or indus- trial sector which the whole trade union movement including the CLC can target. He noted. the differences between Canada and West Germany where the unions are concentrated into large and powerful federations. The unity of the trade union movement — here will be critical in this fight, he said. “In the long haul the concept the UAW is advancing of a metal workers federation — makes a lot of sense’’, Barry observed.