Review by Kim Scipes
Health and
safety is about as boring a subject there is for most workers: they don’t want to hear about this “crap,”
they just want to get the job done.
Yet we now have a new book, published in May 2015—based on 10 years of work, field-tested by workers in a number of countries around the world, and with an enticing cover—that not only advances health and safety in workplaces, but does it from a worker-centered, pro-union, organizing perspective: “Workers in almost every country have organized to build effective, representative unions, win better working conditions, and create long-lasting organizations to defend their victories.” Yes, this book argues that health and safety issues are important, and that organizers can use them to organize co-workers to strengthen or build power on the shop floor as so to “encourage” bosses to do the right thing; as they argue, “the most important product of any factory is the health and safety of its workers,” with meeting production schedules and profits as second.
But while specifically focused on conditions on the shop floor, this puts things into a broader perspective: “To solve workplace problems, we must address the social, political and economic issues that cause them: companies that favor profit more than people, social problems such as racism, discrimination and violence against women, and structures of power and government in our countries and communities.” This statement is placed above a graphic with a woman backed up against a wall, with “poverty,” “disability” and “unemployment” written on the wall, surrounded by feral dogs labeled “long hours, low pay”; “no other job”; “work dangers” and “no education.”
It tells stories to illustrate workers’ issues, both of individual workers and of collective struggles. They tell stories of “Juanita,” a sewing machine operator who suffered from repetitive stress, but also stories such as the NXP Workers’ Union in the Philippines, who have struggled for 20 years to build their union.
This work is intended to be used by workers on the shop floor. It is written simply and clearly, with good illustrations, using images mainly from East and South Asia. The only limitation is that it is only in English although Hesperian is trying to raise money to translate it into other languages. (More below.)
The work is primarily oriented to workers producing for world-market factories, particularly in developing countries. As said, it is presented from an organizing perspective: “But a single worker cannot change the most important problems harming the health of factory workers, such as what chemical to use as a cleaner, whether to enclose a dangerous machine, or how to make sure that no worker or group of workers is always stuck with a particularly dangerous, dirty, or boring job. By working together with others who want to see improvements in the factory, workers can decided what changes they want to make and organize campaigns to convince or pressure the boss to make these changes.”
A look at the Table of Contents gives an overview:
Part 1: “Organizing for Safe and Fair Workplaces.” This includes chapters on “Working for a living and living well”; “Learning and teaching about health at work”; and “Organizing to improve worker health.”
Part 2 focuses on three key industries in these countries: electronics, garments and shoes.
Part 3 features “Work Dangers and Solutions,” focusing in on ergonomics, chemicals and dangers, machine injuries, electricity, fire, dust, noise, light, heat and cold, and falling workers, falling objects, and vehicle injuries.
This is followed by Part 4, “Social Dangers and Solutions.” This includes chapters on working too much, too fast, for too little; doing factory work at home; discrimination; violence; workers who migrate; children who work; access to health care; reproductive and sexual health; stress and mental health; eating well for health; access to safe water and toilets; HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus); TB (Tuberculosis); a decent place to live; pollution from factories.
All of this is followed by two appendices: “Laws and the struggle for decent, health and safe work” and “Common chemicals and materials,” and a reference section.
One doesn’t have to have much experience in factories—I have almost 10 years’ experience working in the printing trades in the US—to know that this book is not only important for workers overseas, but many of these chapters are of immediate interest (or could be!) to workers in the US and Canada! In fact, parts of it could be helpful for those North Americans who work in services, and it should be of interest to everyone engaged in worker education, no matter where you live and work!
To check this out, you can go to Hesperian’s web site at www.hesperian.org . Look for the section on Workers’ Guide to Health and Safety. Click on that, and you can get access to a number of chapters, which are on-line. Check it out, see what you think about the book. And see if you think your co-workers might find it of use.
Hesperian is selling it for $25 a piece, which is a good price for a book of 564 pages. I have no hesitation in recommending it—and no, I am not getting a cut. But they also have established two “solidarity funds” by which you can support their efforts to translate the book into languages other than English, and to subsidize distribution to workers in developing countries around the world. (Workers in developing countries who see this should contact Hesperian to see if they can get a copy sent to them.) What I’d like to ask is this: that workers in EVERY workplace buy at least one copy, and then once you get it and show to co-workers, that you actively ask co-workers to donate money for the solidarity funds. It’s a real concrete way that we can support global labor solidarity.
Having just returned from visiting workers in the KMU Labor Center of the Philippines in April and May of 2015, I know issues in this book are so very salient in these countries: the day before I left, 72 workers were burned to death in a factory making slippers in Manila. I hope workers around the world will join the efforts to make work safe for everyone, no matter where they work.
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Kim Scipes, author of KMU: Building Genuine Trade Unions in the Philippines, 1980-1994 (1996) and “Building Global Labor Solidarity Today: Learning from the KMU of the Philippines” (on-line at http://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/classracecorporatepower/vol2/iss2/2), is the former chair of the Chicago Chapter of the National Writers Union, UAW #1981. He has just finished editing a book on “Building Global Labor Solidarity” that will be out in the Spring. He can be contracted through his web site at http://faculty.pnc.edu/kscipes.
