A livable, sustainable world is a necessity. Implementation of global cooperation to save the air and oceans, the habitats, wildlife and human populations from environmental degradation and corporate plunder.
April
28 is International Workers Memorial Day. This is a day for honoring
the loss of workers worldwide who are injured and killed on the job as
well as those who suffer injury or sickness due to unsafe working
conditions, industrial accidents and abusive management practices.
It is also a time to rededicate ourselves to the struggles for
workplace safety and health, for environmental protection, for just
compensation, medical coverage for all and protection for immigrant
workers who often receive the most dangerous and deadly jobs or are
forced to work without even basic safety tools, equipment, and training.
The International Labour Organization,
the international body of the United Nations that addresses issues of
work and workers rights released a report yesterday that reveals key
facts about workers safety and health worldwide:
The ILO estimates that each year about 2.3 million men and women
die from work-related accidents and diseases including close to 360,000
fatal accidents and an estimated 1.95 million fatal work-related
diseases.
This means that by the end of this day nearly 1 million workers
will suffer a workplace accident, and around 5,500 workers will die due
to an accident or disease from their work.
In economic terms it is estimated that roughly four per cent of
the annual global Gross Domestic Product, or US$1.25 trillion, is
siphoned off by direct and indirect costs of occupational accidents and
diseases such as lost working time, workers’ compensation, the
interruption of production and medical expenses.
Hazardous substances cause an estimated 651,000 deaths, mostly in
the developing world. These numbers may be greatly under-estimated due
to inadequate reporting and notification systems in many countries.
Data from a number of industrialized countries show that
construction workers are three to four times more likely than other
workers to die from accidents at work.
Occupational lung disease in mining and related industries
arising from asbestos, coal and silica exposure is still a concern in
developed and developing countries. Asbestos alone claims about 100,000
deaths every year and the figure is rising annually.
The picture is often grim for workers around the world as well as hear
in the United States. This Workers Memorial Day, we take a moment to
remember those who have passed and encourage everyone to fight to make
work safe—for you, for your families, your neighbors and the
environment.
This year the country and the world
celebrates a very special Earth Day.
Earth Day was first celebrated on April 22 in 1970 and is now
commemorated around the world as a day of celebration of and struggle
for the planet. This year, Bolivian President Evo Morales will address
the United Nations, calling on the global body to make "Mother Earth
Day" an official UN holiday and to acknowledge humanity's common
interest in the protection of the planet and its environment.
But what makes this Earth Day especially important is that the policies
of President Barack Obama represent a dramatic turn towards green
policies that have the potential to reshape the economy for the better.
The White House understands what the vast majority of the American
public already knows, that greens jobs and green policies are not just
necessary to turn back the clock on climate change, but are good for
the economy as well.
Right now, we can put millions of unemployed people to work doing the
essential work of building a green infrastructure: building public
transit systems and components, researching and developing sustainable
energy sources, insulating and repairing America's homes and offices,
educating the public about environmental practices, and cleaning up our
streams, bays, forests and fields.
Let us all pledge to work for and support a green job economy, and help
to build a world that puts people and nature before profits.
For
more information on our policies and approach to the planet and
sustainability, read the Environmental Program of the Communist Party, People and Nature
Before Profits.
Earth Day, April 22, is sandwiched between Tax Day, April 15, and Workers Memorial Day, April 28. Just around the corner is May Day, May 1, the international workers day and a day for flower baskets and maypoles. What do they all have in common?
An economy powered by two toxic pollutants: oil and corporate greed. Misplaced priorities that send more than half of our tax dollars to military spending that kills people, ruins lives, pollutes the planet and wrecks our economy. Damaging foreign policy driven by a quest to secure oil. Workers’ lives lost and health destroyed because of corporate greed. A system that puts profit before people and ravages the earth along the way. And the need for workers and people of the world to unite, to love and preserve our planet and to build a better world.
It’s clearer than ever that the present system can’t continue. It’s not sustainable, either economically or environmentally. Vast parts of our country are industrial wastelands —empty factories, mills, warehouses and storefronts testify to jobs gone forever. In too many places, military bases and industries, or prisons, are the best or only jobs around. Toxic “brownfields” and Superfund sites dot urban and rural landscapes. Open green space, family farms, woods and wetlands have been plowed under for wasteful exurban sprawl and industrial “parks” — many now sporting “for lease” and “foreclosure” signs. Industrial agriculture has brought degraded and tainted food, pollution and toxic working conditions.
Turning this around means getting our economic system in sync with Mother Nature — greening our economy. It means a massive national undertaking to invest in sustainable, non-polluting energy, industry and transportation systems; in well-planned, vibrant and sustainable “green” cities, towns and rural communities; in education, health care and culture to produce an informed and involved citizenry. Of course, that means putting people, and nature, before profits. This won’t happen without a fight.
Earth Day and May Day remind us to breathe the beauty of the flowers of spring and the roses of summer and struggle. “Love your mother” — planet Earth, and, in the words of labor organizer Mother Jones, “fight like hell for the living.”
Scott Marshall, Labor Director of the Communist Party USA, appeared on Arkansas Talk Radio, KARN 102.9. In this 15 minute segment, he spoke about the Communist Party USA, the current economic crisis, a green economy, and much more.
by John Bachtell, National Secretary, 06/20/2002 00:00
Saving humanity from self destruction is a defining issue of our age, whether from immediate destruction of the Earth's ecosphere through nuclear annihilation or longer term environmental pollution.
I begin with a warning: A specter is haunting the world - the specter of environmental destruction! And as communists, we have the responsibility to help bring together a global alliance of working class and people's organizations to exorcise this specter!
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