Sanjay Verma a visitor from Bhopal, India will be one of those present at the Workers’ Memorial Day event being held at the top of Walthamstow Market at 12.30pm, on Saturday 28 April to remember the dead and to continue to fight for the living!
In the UK, each year 1,500 to 1,600 people are killed while doing their jobs – including those killed on the roads while working. It is estimated between 20,000 to 50,000 people die each year in GB from work-related diseases – about 5,000 from asbestos diseases alone. Successive governments have repeatedly said almost all of this is predictable and preventable by employers who still fail to protect their employees and the general public.
Yet despite this the UK government is attacking those health, safety and environmental protections we have fought long and hard for – using the cuts agenda to achieve what big, bad, killer bosses have been screaming for for years.
There will be an exhibit of empty shoes to represent all those people who’s lives have been cut short and can’t be with us on the day.
Relatives of Raymond Holmes who died in 2010 on the Thames Water site in Coppermilll Lane will be in attendance. We will also be remembering Andrezej Rokita, 55, from Poland, who was killed by falling materials while working at M & M Contracting Ltd., Midland Rd. E10, also in 2010
Sanjay Verma will focus our thoughts on the global aspects of poor health, safety and environmental protections when he will bring news from Bhopal, scene of the world’s worst industrial disaster caused by US firm Union Carbide, now owned by Dow Chemicals. He will explain why we should support the global campaign to drop Dow from sponsoring the London Olympics.
Other speakers will include Darren O’Grady, Secretary of Waltham Forest Trades Council and local trade union campaigner Nancy Taaffe.
