Members of five organisations of survivors of the Union Carbide gas disaster in Bhopal today took part in a rally with torches on the occasion of the International Workers Memorial Day.
Several former employees of the Union Carbide factory and their relatives participated in the rally that was held near the statue of the Bhopal Mother opposite the Union Carbide factory. Satinath Sarangi of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action said that according to the International labour Organisation, well over 2.3 million workers die every year from work related injuries or diseases.
While the IlO reports a drop in work related injuries, there has been a dramatic rise in work related diseases in recent years. According to Sarangi, reliable information on work related deaths and injuries are unavailable in India as 90 per cent of the people who carry out hazardous work are unorganised workers. He said that an overwhelming majority of occupational deaths and diseases are preventable and their occurrence can are most often corporate crimes of omission.
Balkrishna Namdeo of the Bhopal Gas Peedit Nirashrit Pensionbhogi Sangharsh Morcha pointed out that there was a long history of work place accidents before the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal that has killed over 25,000 Bhopalis, Following the death of Mohammad Ashraf in December 1981, 28 workers were exposed to phosgene leak in January 1982, three electrical workers were severely burned in April 1982 and four workers were exposed to Methyl Isocyanate in October the same year. Risking their jobs, workers of the Union Carbide factory in Bhopal had warned the neighbourhood population about the likelihood of a catastrophe.
Sazda Bano widow of Mohammad Ashraf who was part of the rally said that she still can not forget the fact that her husband died because he was not provided with appropriate safety equipment. She received a paltry compensation of Rs 50,000 from the Union Carbide management that blamed her husband of being reckless.