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Australian agricultural workers still
seeking justice
By Chris Latham
Perth, Australia, Apr. 29— An herbicide used in the highly
toxic chemical mixture Agent Orange — widely used during the US
war in Vietnam — was still being used in Australia as late as 1985.
A group of workers, employed by the Western Australian government’s
Agricultural Protection Board (APB), who sprayed the herbicide in the
remote Kimberley region have battled for decades to get official recognition
for a wide range of illnesses which they blame on exposure to chemicals.
Finally, in February this year, the WA government agreed to pay compensation
to 17 workers employed by the APB in the Kimberley region between 1975
and 1985.
According to July 2002 government-commissioned study — the Kimberley
Chemical Use Review, the APB used the herbicide 2,4,5-Trichlorophenoxyacetic
acid (2,4,5-T) in the Kimberley region between 1975 and 1985. The herbicide
is known to contain the highly toxic dioxin TCDD.
A soil sample taken from the Derby APB store site in 1999 indicated
that the herbicide may have had higher levels of TCDD contamination
than the maximum legal level permitted. While it is unclear what the
source of this contamination may have been, it is possible that Agent
Orange was imported cheaply after the end of the US war in Vietnam.
What is clear is that over an extended period of time, workers were
spraying herbicides that were in unlabeled drums.
Adding to the danger of dioxin exposure was the lack of occupational,
health, and safety measures that would have limited possible exposure.
Of the Aboriginal workers employed by APB in the Kimberley region, 90
percent told the review they received no safety training. While this
partly reflected a lack of legislative measures mandating what was adequate
protection, there is considerable evidence that in other parts of WA
workers wore protective gear.
The APB workers in the Kimberley region were told by managers that water
near where the herbicide was sprayed was safe to drink. “Safety”
videos made by the APB showed the herbicide being sprayed by workers
wearing shorts and T-shirts, despite the manufacturer’s labels
(from 1969) specifying that skin contact should be avoided.
The workers were given no clear direction on storage of the herbicides
or on safe food preparation in their work camps.
Numerous anecdotes were provided to the review of workers who had their
clothes saturated with 2,4,5-T in the course of their work, and these
clothes being taken home and washed with other family garments.
The workers’ and their families’ fears of the possible dangers
of the herbicides increased when an APB worker died suddenly during
a local football match. The worker was 33 years old and physically fit,
but had had a high level of exposure to the 2,4,5-T.
Despite these concerns, there has been little provision of information
to the local communities where the spraying was carried out or to workers
over the past 20 years.
Dr. Andrew Harper, the report’s author, found that among the 90
former APB employees interviewed, at least 13 probably had illnesses
resulting from exposure to the herbicides. His report made 16 recommendations,
including that the agriculture minister acknowledge that former APB
workers and their families had been exposed to an increased risk of
ill health as a consequence of the APB’s policies and practices.
Harper also recommended that consideration be given to compensating
those workers who had been exposed to the herbicide and suffered disability
as a consequence.
In response, the government convened a new “medical expert panel”
to investigate whether Harper’s conclusion about “an association
between the herbicide and illness was scientifically accurate.”
This new review published its report in February. It concluded that
Harper’s report had not established a causal relationship between
the exposure to 2,4,5-T and the ill health that the APB workers have
experienced. It also argued that the 17 cancers and 49 deaths that have
occurred among the 321 workers employed by the APB in the Kimberley
region over the period studied were “non-significant” as a
statistical test. The workers’ cancer rate was 48percent higher
and their death rate 9percent higher than Kimberley residents not exposed
to herbicide.
This second report became the basis for the government’s decision
to compensate only those APB workers who have developed cancer.
The majority of the former APB workers, who have illnesses other than
cancer, have been left to seek compensation through the tortuously slow
workers’ compensation system.
Interviewed on ABC Radio National’s Background Briefing program
on Apr. 18, Harper described as “a cop-out” the second report’s
refusal to recognize that the non-cancer illnesses could have been produced
by exposed to 2,4,5-T. “I think it’s socially unjust, and
I think that it is an inappropriate use of science,” Harper said.
Source: Green Left Weekly
Victorian nurses impose hospital bans
By Sue Bolton
Melbourne, Australia, Apr. 29 — Faced with intransigence
from Victorian Premier Steve Bracks’ Labor government, an Apr.
20 mass meeting of public hospital nurses voted to reject the government’s
“offer” to remove previously won working conditions. The nurses
voted to implement bans on Apr. 21.
By Apr. 24, the bans had closed about 600 hospital beds and cancelled
about 200 operations.
The Australian Nursing Federation (ANF) is campaigning for a 20percent
pay increase over 30 months. The Bracks government is resisting granting
any state public sector workers pay increases above 2.25percent per
year.
However, the government isn’t just trying to prevent nurses from
improving their pay and conditions. It is trying to strip back a major
improvement in working conditions that nurses won in their 2000 enterprise
bargaining agreement — a minimum ratio of one nurse to four patients.
According to ANF Victorian secretary Lisa Fitzpatrick, no other nurses
in Australia have achieved such a significant improvement in working
conditions. Despite the worldwide shortage of nurses, the nurse-patient
ratio in Victoria has resulted in up to 4,000 nurses returning to Victorian
public hospitals.
Prior to the implementation of the current nurse-patient ratio, up to
400 hospital beds were closed across Victoria because of the shortage
of nursing staff.
A survey of Victorian nurses by the Australian Center for Industrial
Relations Research and Training found that 52 percent would resign or
retire from the industry if the existing nurse-patient ratio wasn’t
maintained.
In an Apr. 22 ANF media release, Fitzpatrick stated: “Our initial
claim sought improvements to nurses’ wages and conditions, but
once again we are being forced to fight for existing conditions so we
can care for patients safely.
“In addition to fighting to maintain nurses’ ability to provide
safe patient care in our hospitals and psychiatric services, the government
has now revealed that it intends to replace nurses with unqualified
staff to care for elderly and vulnerable residents in public aged care
beds.”
Fitzpatrick pointed out that the bed closures resulting from the bans
are similar to the number that might be closed as a result of under-staffing
if the government gets its way with abolishing the existing nurse-patient
ratio.
Victorian paramedics have threatened to strike unless the government
improves on its 2.3 percent pay offer.
Despite the government’s protest that it can’t afford to pay
any more to its workers, it released an economic statement on Apr. 20
that commits it to reduce land tax revenues by $1 billion and to cut
$900 million in employers’ WorkCover premiums.
Source: Green Left Weekly
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