SUNS4516 Monday 27 September 1999

Health: Rich nations export hazardous work to the South



Rio de Janeiro, Sep 23 (IPS/Mario Osava) -- The wealthiest countries are not only getting rid of their polluting industries, generally by moving them to the developing world, they are also getting rid of jobs that are hazardous to worker health.

Norway's goal is to eradicate repetitive work in that country over the next few years, said Leonor Cedillo-Becerril, researcher on psycho-social factors of occupational health, and participant in the II International Congress Women, Work and Health, underway this week in Rio de Janeiro.

Sausage production is one of the last of the repetitive work activities in Norway that cause muscular-skeletal problems, also known as accumulative stress syndrome or repetitive strain disorder. "Norwegians will surely continue consuming sausages, so their production will be transferred to another country," observed Cedillo, author of a study on the psycho-social risk factors faced by women workers in Mexico's maquiladora
industries.

The responsibility for the consequences of "importing" such industries belongs to the country that invites them, because "the receptor is not passive and does it to create jobs and export profits, and to obtain technology and other benefits," indicated Cedillo.

But there is a great imbalance between industrialised and developing countries when it comes to knowledge on the issue, she said. This influences decisions to import certain industries. The Scandinavian countries are far ahead in the area, even ahead of their industrialised counterparts.

The imbalance starts with the budgets earmarked for research and for social programmes, in addition to information available to study work-related health, stated Cedillo, who organised a taskforce at the congress on North-South occupational health differences.

In many Latin American countries, there are no available statistics on occupational health problems, much less data that would show the incidence among women, she pointed out.
Repetitive stress injuries are not even included in Mexico's reports on occupational health risks, Cedillo said.

But repetitive stress injuries constitute a numerous and growing number of the occupational health problems, especially among women, the primary victims of repetitive work.

The maquiladoras, that have spread throughout Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, employ mostly female workforces and have become the epicentre of occupational injury "imports."

In Brazil, injuries from repetitive work represent 78.9 to 87% of women's occupational health problems, according to Eleonora Menecucci de Oliveira, researcher at the Federal University of Sao Paulo.

But official data, which indicate nearly 30,000 cases per year, underestimate the actual numbers. They are made invisible by under-reporting, the resistance of businesses and the National Social Security Institute in recognising the disease, and the fear of unemployment, said Margarida Barreto, occupational health physician.

The lack of recognition is much more serious when it comes to psycho-social factors of occupational health, such as "high tension work," or continuous stress, stated Cedillo. They are risks that worsen already physically harmful conditions and, for example, cardiovascular diseases indicated by symptoms such as
depression, exhaustion and irritability.

Additional stress arises from budget cuts that have been intensified by economic globalisation, and they always begin, and have profound effects, in the social arena - "a similarity between North and South," added Cedillo.

The greater incidence of occupational health risks in the nations of the South was also made evident by the motions approved by the International Congress Women, Health and Work this week. The next congress will be held in Sweden in 2002.

The conference participants passed motions of solidarity with the East Timorese facing massacres by pro-Indonesian paramilitary forces, solidarity with the women of Afghanistan who have been stripped of their basic rights, and a motion condemning the involvement of girls and boys in Colombia's armed conflict.