"CAF management placed production above workers' health"
- Forty days after the discovery that three buildings on the Beasain train were contaminated with asbestos, workers' representatives and institutions appear in the Basque Parliament. The members of the Works Council denounce that the Directorate has provided them with "absolutely insufficient" information. The Department of Labor of the Basque Government and Osalan have acknowledged that "something has clearly failed".
Since 29 August three vessels of the CAF plant in Beasain have been closed for asbestos contamination. Hundreds of workers have been at risk of contamination after working four days after the August holiday.
CAF has carried out for eight years the replacement of the roofs of its flags and the removal of asbestos during the summer holidays. Alarms skyrocketed after one of this year’s measurements put officially recognised limits to value. On 24 August about a hundred workers in the eighth vessel stayed at home.
On the same day, the company management ordered the incorporation after the negative result of the new measurements. However, at the request of the labor prevention delegates and members of the Works Council, more measurements were made on the building and on the two sides, as well as personal measurements to the workers.
After four days of work, 10 of the 12 employees who were followed tested positive. So the company decided to close all three ships and send hundreds of workers home to this day.
"The decision to join the work has been the direction"
They appear on Wednesday in the Basque Parliament to clarify what happened. The members of the Works Council spoke at the request of EH Bildu and expressed concern at the complaints that have been made in other ships where asbestos has been removed from the appearance of dust and dirt. "Management has always told us that measurements have gone well and therefore to work. But now we question that speech," they said.
The measurements were made because they were only requested by the Works Council, according to the workers' representatives: "Management has been very hidden, information and communication has been absolutely inadequate"
They also wanted to highlight the pollution warning given by the prevention delegate to Osalan, not the company. They also complain that the representatives of Osalan had not visited the Beasain facilities until eight days later.
As they explained, the eighth ship was in a "regrettable" situation when going to work, "with a lot of dirt and dust", and the measurements were made because only the Works Council requested more measurements: "Management has been very hidden, information and communication has been absolutely inadequate."
Workers’ representatives also wished to clarify another issue: "The decision to join the work has always been the direction. It outperformed production to worker health."
Thus, a number of measures have been required, among others, to get rid of the person responsible for what happened at company level, and the inclusion and monitoring of workers in the list of possible contamination: "What has happened in previous years gives us a lot of fear and respect."
Clarifications by the Basque Government and Osalan
The Vice-Minister for Labour and Social Security, Elena Pérez Barredo, and the Director-General of Osalan, Lourdes Íscar, also attended the session of Parliament. "It is clear that something has failed, when there has been an incidence with an apparently correct work plan," they point out.
In his speech, Íscar explains Osalan's practices and defends the work of the institution's technicians. In any case, he acknowledges that the first call of the prevention delegate was fundamental.
For his part, Pérez Barredo reports that the labor inspection has open the investigation to know what happened and to debug the possible responsibilities.
Fortunately, most industrial companies start to understand, after the many convictions, that a small exposure to asbestos fibres, without adequate respiratory protection, is sufficient to cause a serious lung disease that causes ten times more deaths than accidents at work, even... [+]
