Europeans ponder workplace v. home health inequalities
‘Workplaces are not merely spaces where people work – they are spaces where people live their lives. Anything which would be prohibited on grounds of consumer health or environmental protection should also be prohibited in workplaces.’ These were the words with which Laurent Vogel, a researcher at the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), closed the ‘Work and Cancer’ conference organised by the ETUI in November in Brussels.
Social health inequalities were a recurring theme throughout the event, culminating in compelling testimonies from three women who had formerly worked at a factory in the Netherlands supplying Lycra to the US chemical giant DuPont and been exposed to a powerful solvent used to manufacture the well-known synthetic fibre. This exposure had major effects not only on their own health (such as cancers and gynaecological problems), but also on that of their children (including still births, miscarriages and learning disabilities).