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23 February, 2009
According to Brazilian health and safety standards, employers in all sectors must promote a yearly “Workplace Accident and Disease Prevention Week,” or SIPAT. This obligation creates an opportunity for trade unions to discuss the main issues related to health and safety, such as hazardous chemicals, HIV/AIDs, women’s health, and emerging issues such as the health effects arising from the increasing use of nanotechnologies.
The collective agreement in Brazil’s chemicals sector thus requires chemical companies to include nanotechnologies and environment in workers’ training programmes. The agreement provides that companies can ask for the assistance of public health services when needed, and some of them do allow a trade union technical adviser.
Trade unions in the chemical industries in São Paulo State have been working closely with the Fundacentro´s National Occupational Health and Safety Institute, and a trade union advisory body – Departamento Intersindical de Estatísticas e Estudos Sócio-Econômicos (DIEESE) – to frame a strategic approach to the risks.
The collective agreement signed in December 2008 between employers and the CUT-affiliated Chemicals Trade Union Federation of São Paulo State (FETQUIM) – representing 125,000 workers in the petrochemical, chemical, plastics, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, paints, and other industrial sectors – also includes recommendations that the companies share their environmental programmes and initiatives with workers during the SIPAT week.
Currently, the main objective of Sindicato dos Químicos of the ABC Region, an affiliate of both FETQUIM-SP/CUT and ICEM, is to promote workers’ participation in workplace programmes regarding protection of the environment, as well as workers’ health from the impacts of the unknown risks of nanotechnologies.