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11 September, 2007
Belgium’s FGTB Union has raised awareness to the number of workplace fatalities occurring in Saint-Gobain operations, particularly in China. The ICEM affiliate is voicing concern because of the French multinational’s own admittance that it counts 21 fatalities so far in 2007.
Three of those fatalities have come in Chinese operations of the Paris-based company since June. The FGTB is calling for a trade union analysis of the company’s safety procedures, and a greater emphasis on preventative measures.
The union also stresses that support and solidarity to Saint-Gobain must occur when accidents and fatalies do happen, including stop-work actions to attend funerals and communiqués and distribution of information when accidents occur.
The company has cited a worker at a Beijing, who was crushed to death by a falling machine part on 22 June; another worker killed in a Hanglas plant in Wehai City on 27 June by an “unexplained fall of a heavy metallic piece;” and a woman killed at another Hunglas plant in Kunshan on 12 July by a loaded fork-lift. In addition, a sub-contractor was killed in Gunsan, South Korea, on 20 June during a gas leak in a confined space, and a French delivery driver was buried when a wall collapsed in Cagnes sur Mer on 18 July.
Saint-Gobain also reported heart attacks occurring on the job in Brazil, South Korea, and the US, and workers dying due to road accidents in France and Brazil. Early in 2007, the company was fined £10,000 by UK’s Health & Safety Executive due to a four-tonne runaway truck seriously injuring a worker at a facility in Ilkeston, UK.
And last year, the French company lost a US$3.06 million judgement after a gas blast severely burned sub-contractors sued for damages. They had been hired at a Grandview, state of Missouri, glass plant of Saint-Gobain Calmar to remove a heating unit line, and were told by the company that all gas had been removed from the line.
Last year, the company said the average rate of daily injuries occurring in its global operations had been reduced to six.