Taking the politics out of politics

Scan page 11

WHILE the asbestos saga continues to unfold as a massive human disaster, it was interesting to read a paper discussing the trade union approach to the question of toxic substances, written by David Gee, Health and Safety Officer of the GMBATU.

Entitled "A Trade Union Approach to the Hazards of Toxic Substances" , it starts oft with the traditional employers' approach. Gee calls this 'The Generation Game". , and it is played with workers' lives.

"One generation of workers is exposed to a new material, which is assumed to be safe. At the end of it some workers are beginning to identify a hazard, like the asbestos textile workers who complained in 1900 By the end of the second generation, a radical doctor or scientist is pointing the finger of suspicion at the culprit material, but the medical§scientific establishment of the day shout him [sic] down. At the end of the third generation, the evidence is becoming overwhelming and the speed with which action is taken is then determined solely by economic considerations.

The alternative, trade union approach, is basically a "guilty till proven innocent" one. If implemented it would mean:

*All unnecessary exposure to chemicals would be avoided.

*Industry would be obliged to introduce the appropriate technology to control exposure.

*Chemicals would have to be tested before marketing, rather than testing them on workers after marketing.

The trade union approach would look at all evidence of risk, including tests on animals and bacteria (to identify potential carcinogens), and workers' experiences, as well epidemiology (looking at the health of workers exposed to chemicals).

In the past, epidemiology has been used to allay workers' SCOTLAND Edinburgh.

Contact: Dave, 229-4591. SO is sold at Muirhouse (Sat. 10.30-12.30) and at the First-of-May bookshop, Candlemaker Row.

Glasgow.

Contact: 63 Dixon Avenue, Glasgow G42. Paper sales: Friday lunchtime, Glasgow School of Art; Saturday afternoon, Springburn Shopping Arcade; Tuesday morning: Maryhit UBO; and Glasgow Bookshop Collective.

NORTH WEST Hyndburn.

Contact: Accrington Liverpool.

Contact: 733 6663. SO is sold at News-fromNowhere, Whitechapel and at Progressive Books, Berry St.

Manchester.

Contact: Tony, 273 5691. SO is sold at Grass Roots Books, Newton St., Piccadilly.

Rochdale.

Contact: c/o 28 Middle Lane, London N8.

Stoke.

Contact: Paul Barnett, 328198.

A FORMER senior official of the Health and Safety Executive — their director for Scotland — last week accused the watchdog body of failing to protect the safety of workers in asbestos factories. He alleged that HSE inspectors were failing to enforce or apply existing asbestos safety regulations, which are themselves considered by many to be barely adequate to minimise risks faced by workers.

fears and justify the use of substances, often despite other evidence of harm.

Gee argues for the right of workers to take part in the "essentially political process of considering the risks and benefits of using and controlling substances at work since the assessment of chemicals involves opinions as well as scientific Workers also have howledge of the actual conditions of use of chemicals and therefore have views on the practice of control rather than the theory.

The trade union approach to control limits for chemicals is also different. *For carcinogens, no "safe" level should be expected. All exposure carries some risk of cancer. *Levels of exposure and of risk should be set, not by reference to what is achievable by the worst and dirtiest industries, but by a majority of factories in a group of users of a particular Stockport.

Contact: 40 Fox St, Edgley.

SO is sold at Stockport Market, (Saturday, 11.0012.30).

Wirral.

Contact: Lol Duffy, 3 St.

James Court, Victoria Rd., New Brighton, Merseyside.

YORKSHIRE EAST Durham.

Contact: Andy, 64088. SO is sold at Community Co-op, New Elvet.

Halifax.

Contact: 52156. SO is sold at Hebden Bridge Books.

Harrogate.

Contact: Mark, 522542. SO is sold at Harrogate Market (Wednesday, Friday, Saturday lunchtimes).

Huddersfield.

Contact: Alan Brooke, 59 Magdale, Honley, HD7 2LX Hull.

Contact: c/o 28 Lane, London N8.

Leeds Contact: Garth, 623322. SO is sold at Books and Corner Books, Woodhouse Lane. Sheffield.

Conract Rob, 589307. SO is sold at Boots in Fargate (Saturday, 12 to 1) and at Independent Bookshop, Glossop Rd.

Sunderland.

Contact: c/o Durham. York.

Contact: 414118. SO is sold at the University (Friday mornings), Coney St. (Saturday mornings), the dole office (most mornings) and at Community Bookshop.

WALES AND WEST Bristol.

Contact: c/o 28 Mid Lane, London N8. substance.

At present, the former approach is the one adopted in the asbestos industry. Here, a level of one fibre of asbestos per cubic centimetre of air (with a risk of 1-2% extra deaths) in an asbestos textile factory is allowed to drag down desireed standards, even though asbestos cement factories can achieve 0.2 fibres per c.c.

To show how the trade union approach would work, Gee looks at four examples. One of these is Man-Made Mineral Fibre (MMMF). A recent Health and Safety Executive Committee said MMMF should be treated with suspicion and recommended a limit of five fibres per c.c.

The trade union minority on the committee plumped for 0.5 fibres per c.c. on the grounds that:

*MMMF should be harmful.

*Studies on workers using it are few.

*Two epidemiology studies suggest lung disease, though clear evidence of cancer would not be expected till the 1990s.

*MMMF is produced in fibres of similar size to asbestos, and this is thought to be the important factor in causing asbestos diseases.

*Animals have developed tumours with MMMF.

*0.5 fibres per c.c.' is easily obtainable by the majority of users.

This approach is obviously a valuable one, though SO supporters would argue for control by workers in combatting exposure to hazardous substances.

Workers' interests are the opposite to those of employers and mere participation allows workers' interests to be compromised or ignored.

This is an interesting paper and would make a useful pamphlet for workers, with a modicum of re-writing and the addition of a glossary.

Cardiff.

Middle Contact:

Taunton.

Contact: c/o :

Lane, London NE MIDLANDS Birmingham.

Contact: Godfrey Webster, 169 Barclay Rd., Bearswood, Smethwick. SO is sold at the Other Bookshop.

Coventry. Contact: Keith, 75623. SO is sold at the Wedge Bookshop.

Leicester.

Contact: Phil, 857908. SO is sold at Blackthorne Books, High Street.

Northampton.

Contact: Ross, 713606.

Nottingham.

Contact: Pete, 585640. SO is sold at the Victoria Centre, (Saturday, 11 to 1) IT WAS Wednesday November 30 the day the High Court decided to put the NGA out of business by seizing all its funds.

The labour movement had yet to decide whether it would stand idly by and let it happen, but when Labour's Party Political Broadcast went out at 9.00pm on Wednesday evening, it looked like a British trade union was in the process of being pulverised and destroyed by the capitalist state for the first time in 150 years.

A couple of days earlier the Master of the Rolls, Sir John Donaldson, had been quoted in the press saying that in Britain today, talk about the impartiality of the courts is a lot of eye wash and that their "current functions put the courts almost entirely in the business of restricting or penalising the Four square It should have been Labour's cue to nail its colours to the mast, to come out four-square for the NGA and to denounce the naked class 'justice' of the High Court and of the Tory government whose legislation it is applying.

But Labour on TV seemed more interested in someone's delusion that Neil Kinnock is John F. Kennedy reborn than in the life and death struggle of the NGA.

This Party Political Broadcast was all about Neil Kinnock, a new, dynamic, eloquent, rugbyplaying bold young Labour Not Kinnock and at Mushroom shop, Heathcote St.

Basingstoke.

Contact: c/o 28 Lane, London N8.

SO is sold at Goo Bookshop, London I Oxford.

Contact c/o 28 Lane, London N8. sold at Tescos, Middle Rd., (Fridays Cornmarket (Sat 11 to 1) and at EOA Cowley Road.

LONDON AREA Brent (and NW].

Contact: Mick, 624 Camden.

Contact: Mike, 267 Hackney.

Contact: 348 5941 or 8 0771.

Hounslow.

Contact: Chris, 898 6961. Islington.

Contact: Nik, 278 1341.

Orpington.

Contact Siu Ming, 691 1141 BookMiddle oad.

Middle SO is to 7), urdays, Books, candidate for President of the UK in the next election. The 'Presidential" Prime Minister manque with a vengeance.

The broadcast was an episode in the drive of Labour's right and soft left to solve Labour's problems, internal and external, by playing up the personality of the leader and downplaying politics.

Carve up

On the day the High Court started to carve up the NGA, it was both an irrelevance and an obscenity. Certainly it was an insult to the labour movement to put out such a piece of advertising-agency, apolitical bumpf.

Of course such broadcasts are prepared well in advance. But it could not have been for mere technical reasons that our Party failed to rise to the occasion by Putney.

Contact: Tom, Richmond Contact: Nick, SE London.

Contact Siu Ming, 691 11: Southwark Lambeth.

Contact: Jeff, 635 8468.

Tower Hamlets.

Contact: Susan, 377 1328.

London Educationals:

State and Revolution; The Russian Revolution; The USSR and Stalinism; Ireland: Why is the left divided?. The above are a planned series taking place on Fridays, 6pm at the LSE, East Building, Ist Floor, room E196.

Discussions on Imperialism Thursdays, 7pm, at 214, Sickert Court, London N1.

SO is sold at the following bookshops: Central Books Colletts, The Other Book. shop, Bookmarks, Bookplace, (Peckham Rd., SE15] Kilburn Books and Reading Matters [Wood Green Shopping Centre]. 10p Lon NAOr Not Kennedy - it's Kinnock taking a clear stand alongside the NGA against the Tories and the High Court.

Personality

It was a test-case for the "Personality-not-politics" 'Presidential' approach and it shwed what a miserable business it is — Harold Wilsonism in a Britain 20 years further down the spiral of decline and without even Wilson's pretence or delusion of having political Still, perhaps we should be grateful for what the Parliamentary Labour Party haven't done. They haven't concentrated on denouncing the mass picketing. They condemn "law breaking" in general but blame the Tories and their anti-union laws for the confrontation in Warrington.

The Tories' anti-union legislation, say spokesperson John Smith and others, is not serving the national interest. Labour is therefore the true party of the national interest.

Smith is effective on TV and may do the Party some good with the broad, amorphous electorate: so may President Kinnock's Party personality broadcast. But that's all trivial, ephemeral and inconsequential when a trade union is on the butchering table of Tory hangman Donaldson. The political wing of the labour movement should stand unequivocally with the union and the mass picket. Whatever the electoral or other consequences.

A Class Fighter pamphlet 10p plus postage from Sickert Court, Jon N1 2SY.

Scan page 12

Islington council has made stands on Ireland and gay rights, and maintained services - in contrast to its SDP predecessor Socialist Organiser, December 1983 Page JOHN HARRIS NO CUTS ideological condition.

But the reflection has become more than a reflection. The inadequacy, rather than being remedied through the enlightening effects of experience and the educational efforts of the most conscious revolutionaries, has become a spreading infection.

'We shall seek to involve the council trade unions in this campaign and produce a further protest letter on the theme, 'We Won't Pay the Tory Surcharge' "We shall attempt to organise borough-wide canvassing with this material in. order to build support for the March 26 conference.

Lambeth leader Ted Knight 'The real cost of the increased services we plan for this year is only £1.6 million, but the government has added a penalty of £2.6 million to the cost making it 2½ times as expensive, at £4.4 million.

"The Tories have done the same to our main budget. Without the "Tory Surcharge' the cost

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