Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-01-15-Speech-2-018"
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"en.20080115.5.2-018"2
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"Madame President, the suicides of Renault and Peugeot workers in France and the thousands of cases of lung cancer among people whose jobs involve contact with asbestos are clear evidence that health at work is a problem.
In response, the European Commission has produced a communication elevated to the status of a ‘health strategy’, which in fact reads like something from Walt Disney – a resolution drafted by Snow White for the Seven Dwarfs. And it really is quite touching. In paragraph 35, for example, we are told that we need healthy lifestyles at the workplace; paragraph 29 is about encouraging medical examinations; paragraph 54 urges the installation of fire sprinklers; in paragraph 49 we read that stress is a threat to health; and recital D suggests, low and behold, that fatal accidents are more common among construction workers than among senior European civil servants.
Luckily, the rapporteur for the Committee on Industry has solutions to offer, including the employment of a psychologist and a chaplain for every 500 employees.
We are actually told nothing, however, about the causes of occupational illness – of which there are three. The first is the ideology of dismantling protection at our borders, thus placing our workers in unfair competition with Asian slave labour. The only way our industries can survive is by going all out for higher productivity, at the expense of health.
The second problem is the daft policy of the strong euro, making us uncompetitive in terms of exchange rates. The only variable left to adjust is productivity, which is forced up once again, and once again health is compromised.
The third cause of our troubles is the neurotic philosophy of competitiveness – in effect an economic war between Europe and Asia or Europe and Latin America. But wars result in casualties and deaths, and the victims in this case are the people afflicted by occupational illness and accidents. In other words, the European worker is out there like a bull in the global economic arena, stressed and bloody and giving his all, until his health has gone. The solution is to take our workers out of that global arena with its unfair rules, and that will require new customs technology for deductible customs duties."@en1
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