A recording of the Thursday Talk  – Clean Air Day and What is next for TUCAN? has now been published on YouTube. You can view it below:

You can view Professor Andrew Watterson’s PowerPoint Cleaning up the air in Scotland here

Hilda Palmer’s  PowerPoint Tucan – Air pollution all in a day’s work is  here and her presentation notes are here.

Further information

Links to more information:

• • Greener Jobs Alliance Newsletters
  • Greener workplaces for a just transition – a Wales TUC toolkit for trade unionists | TUC
  • Courses – Greener Jobs Alliance
  • Clean Air Plan for Wales: Healthy Air, Healthy Wales
  • Greener Jobs Alliance, Air Pollution page
  • Toxics Use Reduction in Scottish context

For more information contact janet@gmhazards.org.uk

If workplaces are vectors of transmission can they ever be virus free? Join us on Tuesday 22 June at 6pm to discuss this question with trade union and health and safety activists.

Speakers

Tracy Edwards, Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS) (personal capacity)
Kathy Jenkins, Scottish Hazards campaign

Chair

Janet Newsham, Greater Manchester Hazards Centre and Zero Covid Campaign

Registration

• Register on Zoom
• Facebook event

Notes

PCS members working for the DVLA are currently in dispute over Covid safety failures Morning Star website

The survey should only take about 3 mins to complete.  The results will inform our campaigning priorities and enable us to better support workers.

Please complete the survey here

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/KSWBXJL

Clean Air Day: Thursday June 17th – 6-7.30pm

Clean Air Day has been held every year since 2017 and is co-ordinated by Global Action Plan. The need for action is clear. From the recent verdict at nine year old Ella Kissi-Debra’s inquest making a direct link between the air pollution she endured and her untimely death to the recent study published by University College London stating that globally we are experiencing at least 8.7 million deaths related to air pollution annually.

On Clean Air Day 2021 join the Hazards Campaign panel of experts from across the UK, to discuss what is happening in their country and what TUCAN should be doing to drive forward the air quality agenda throughout UK workplaces.

Register via Eventbrite for the  Zoom event

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hazards-campaign-thursday-talk-clean-air-day-and-what-next-for-tucan-tickets-137598373439

Links to more information and resources

Greener Jobs Alliance

Greener workplaces for a just transition – a Wales TUC toolkit for trade unionists | TUC

Free online Courses from the Greener Jobs Alliance

The Clean Air Plan for Wales: Healthy Air, Healthy Wales, Welsh Government

Setting standards for employers to meet isn’t an unreachable burden – London’s low emission zone, TUCAN

Toxics Use Reduction: beyond analysis to action Linking public health, occupational health and safety, environmental sustainability and new or better employment: a position paper Toxic use Reduction in the Scottish context

Stop deadly exposures @ work today! Hazards Campaign Briefing Document

Target cancers: Cancers and their work causes Hazards magazine factsheet

Air Pollution: all in a days work TUCAN PowerPoint

For more information contact janet@gmhazards.org.uk

If you would like to take part in the air quality monitoring of your workplace, please contact hilda@gmhazards.org.uk

Join us for the Hazards Campaign Thursday Talk – Stopping the abuse of Call/Contact Centre workers
Thursday 13th May – 6-7.30pm

As more work goes online, are you a call/contact centre worker? Call/contact Centre workers face strict and excessive surveillance by their managers, during the pandemic many have been exposed to Covid-19 infections because they have continued to work in unhealthy working environments like those PCS members striking at Swansea DVLA. Call centre workers face abuse by customers, at risk from acoustic shock and some have to listen to suicidal customers that they are not trained to deal with. How can workers challenge these unsafe and unhealthy working conditions?

Hazards Campaign Thursday Talk – Stopping the Abuse of Call/Contact Centre Workers Thursday 13th May, 6-7.30pm
Please register for your link to the event:
https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hazards-campaign-thursday-talk-stopping-the-abuse-of-call-centre-workers-tickets-153607348715

The discussion will be led by:
– Prof. Phil Taylor University of Strathclyde – Covid-19 and Call/Contact Centre Workers Survey
– Tracy Edwards – PCS National Health and Safety Officer
– Call Centre Collective Speaker tbc

Join us for our Thursday Talk – Stopping the mental health harm of work Thursday 15th April – 6-7pm

What should our employers do to stop the mental health harm at work?  Work related stress continues to be the top concern of trade union safety reps, it is causing the highest loss of working days through sickness and now there are additional mental health impacts from Covid-19. April is Stress Awareness month, we need prevention of this workplace killer!

Please register for your link to the event:

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/149826851145

The discussion will be led by:
Peter Kelly – HSE Inspector
Janet Newsham – Greater Manchester Hazards Centre
Further speaker on the the mental health impact of Covid  (tbc)

The meeting , held on 10 March 2021, was jointly organised by Hazards Campaign and the TUC to consider the Breast Cancer as an industrial issue.

Helen Lynn from Breast Cancer Alliance and Hilda Palmer Hazards Campaign provided an introduction to the meeting and it was a follow up to a Hazards Campaign meeting Breast Cancer Awareness is not enough held in October 2020 with Helen Lynn, Jane Stewart and Jane Jane McArthur speaking at it.  A link to film recording and resources can be found at: http://www.hazardscampaign.org.uk/blog/hazards-campaign-thursday-talk-breast-cancer-awareness-is-not-enough-video-and-resources

Helen Lynn:

Breast cancer is not a rite of passage

–         it’s a social justice and human rights issue

–         its an occupational and environmental disease while also being an indication of the state of the environment, that’s all environments, the workplace, the home, the wider environment and the first environment

–         the womb. And breast cancer can begin in the womb with pre-birth exposure to toxic chemicals

–         which is why it is so important to protect women and men in the workplace.

We must not forget there are lives behind every statistic.

• Breast cancer is the most common cancer in UK women with 55,176 and 390 men diagnosed per year -150/day.
• Deaths – 11,500 women and 85 men per year – 32 people die from breast cancer each day.
• In the last 25 years in the UK rates have gone from 1 in 12 to 1 in 7.
• Incidence risen by 72% in the last 50 years.
• Up to 70% of cases have no known cause – 30% attributed to lifestyle risk factors + genetic predisposition
• It’s the 2nd most common cause of cancer death and the leading cause of death in women under 50.
• There are an estimated 35,000 people living with secondary breast cancer in the UK.
• Breast cancer deaths in England are more common in females living in the most deprived areas.
• Ethnic variations – patients known to be black are younger, less likely to be screen-detected and have worse prognosis tumours.

The issues

• Breast cancer not just a gender issue, it is a health and safety issue.
• But women are particularly affected because there are sex differences are found in almost every system of the body. There is lifetime of hormonal changes ie pregnancy, menstruation, and menopause.

Women are not the default male.

• Different immune systems – so we are more prone to auto immune disease – women make up 80% of those affected. Thinner skin – may allow great absorption of chemicals. Detox more slowly.
  The solutions
• The current narrative is that breast cancer is that its all down to poor diet, wonky genes, too much alcohol and not enough exercise is not working, has not worked for the last 50 odd years. Cancer rates continue to rise as do deaths form cancer.
• The human rights approach – United Nation Environment and the UN Human rights programme have issues key messages for human health and hazardous substances.
• Stating that states are obliged to respect protect and prevent exposures to hazardous substances and failure to do so is a violation of obligations in relation to human rights and the right to life. Specifically mentions women and girls and workers at heightened risk of occupational exposure.

A cancer free economy –

• The cancer free economy movement seeks to analysis the system which has created an economy that depends on hazardous and harmful chemicals and bring about a just transition to a cancer-free economy that works for all people and the planet.
• Recognising environmental and occupational risk factors in all cancer plans.
• The environmental and occupational risk factors are the missing confounding risk factors in all cancer plans and strategies.

Some solutions:

• Toxic tours of homes, workplaces, bathroom cabinets.
• Demand all breast and cancer charities refences any information on risk factors on their website.
• Toxic use reduction and COSHH (Hilda)
• Risk perception – Jane McArthur’s work – Interesting approach to understanding breast cancer risk by assessing women’s occupational and environmental risk perception.
• Need to campaign from a worker, consumer and citizen perspective.

More information:

• www.allianceforcancerprevention .org.uk
• @Cancer_alliance
• www.frompinktoprevention.org
• @pink_prevention
• www.lincscancerproject.org
• @farmworkcancer
• helenmtlynn@gmail.com

Hilda Palmer:

Hilda also presented information:

Breast Cancer possible exposure causes at work include: Ionising radiation; endocrine disrupters; solvents; environmental tobacco smoke; PCBs; pesticides, including DDT/DDE, hexachlorobenzene, lindane, heptachlor breakdown products and triazine herbicides; combustion by-products including PAHs and dioxin; reactive chemicals including ethylene oxide; possible links to non-ionising radiation, phthalates; work as a firefighter; also long term nightwork and others

Hilda emphasised the importance of COSHH regulations, requiring employers to identify and risk assess all substances and prevent exposure of workers to substances that harm their health at work using the COSHH control hierarchy. Unfortunately the enforcement of this hierarchy as especially elimination and substitution is poorly enforced.  She said that it was important to use the precautionary principle to the risks by substituting safer substances- Intelligent substitution based on the hazards of whole class of chemicals – TURI www.turi.org/ http://www.subsport.eu/ where possible.  And using high standards of mechanical ventilation where necessary, air monitoring and also a precautionary level of PPE properly fitted for the individual where necessary.

Hilda proposed suggestions for action, including:

• Explicitly campaign for prevention of cancer caused by work 12%
• Explicitly link Breast Cancer with work causes not lifestyle
• Make eliminating exposures to carcinogens (EDCs, Mutagens and Rep Toxics)  an explicit aim
• Demand Risk Assessments, research, actions all  sex/gender sensitive – resurrect TUC GOSH and develop into whole stream of work 
• Use existing law COSHH better, demand better enforcement of control hierarchy
• Campaign for better laws/actions: Toxic Use Reduction;
• Link Justice, Equality Human Rights, Environmental with workplace health and safety – 20% cancer caused by work+env exposure+ causes linked
• Avoid Pink washing and putting Breast Cancer in wellbeing box

It was agreed to:

• Support the setting up of a GOSH-Gender in Occupational Safety and Health committee to look in particular at the impact of work on women health and bodies.
• To consider the suggestions for action and solutions recommended by Helen and Hilda in their presentations.

Further information:

• https://www.tuc.org.uk/research-analysis/reports/womans-work-never-safe-womens-health-and-safety-work
• https://www.tuc.org.uk/sites/default/files/GenderHS2017.pdf
• https://www.facebook.com/pinkladiesderry/
• http://pink-ladies.co.uk/
• https://www.breastcancerpreventionscotland.org/our-team/
• https://www.unitetheunion.org/what-we-do/equalities/covid-19-unite-guide-to-workplace-equality-impact-assessments/

·       Toxic Use Reduction htps://www.resea