Younger Australian tradies and employees are going through a well being disaster as new findings reveal the extent of the public health menace silicosis poses to lungs.
Kyle Goodwin, who labored for a decade as a stonemason, has been given 5 to eight years to reside after being recognized with silicosis in 2018.
“As a substitute of planning a household, we’re planning my funeral,” Goodwin mentioned within the “Cease this Killer Stone” marketing campaign video.
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“I used to chop kitchen benchtops. Folks favored engineered stone as a result of it was cheaper, however the mud obtained into my lungs, inflicting incurable, lethal silicosis.”
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: Calls to ban engineered stone merchandise over silica mud.
“That is too excessive a value for anybody to pay. Nothing will save my life,” he mentioned.
“That is preventable. We have to take motion now.”
Goodwin is now working with the Development, Forestry, Mining and Power Union and calling upon the federal government to ban the importation and manufacture of engineered stone within the hope that it’s going to save different employees’ lives.
The Australian Employees’ Union, the Australian Council of Commerce Unions and the CFMEU launched the “Cease this Killer Stone” marketing campaign on Monday, urging regulatory our bodies to take speedy motion to cease rising instances of silicosis, a lung illness attributable to inhaling crystalline silica mud .
The situation is incurable and may trigger lung irritation and fibrosis.
Monash College Head of Respiratory Pharmacology Affiliate Professor Jane Bourke warns silicosis is an occupational lung illness that places employees within the development business at nice threat.
“Silicosis is a devastating occupational lung illness affecting growing numbers of employees inhaling superb silica mud, inflicting irritation and scarring within the lungs,” Bourke mentioned.
“Silica mud particles are 100 occasions smaller than a grain of sand to allow them to journey deep into the lungs to trigger injury.
“Silicosis will not be solely affecting stonemasons but in addition employees in development industries together with quarrying and tunnelling of sandstone.”
Bourke provides that engineered stone used to make kitchen bench tops can include as much as 96 per cent of silica — an quantity which is considerably larger than pure stone — which places employees in danger and exposes them to “unsafe workplaces”.
“Silicosis is a preventable illness, however is at the moment incurable, can result in different ailments together with lung most cancers, and could be deadly. There isn’t a proof that engineered stone can be utilized safely — the one option to defend employees in stonecutting industries is to ban the usage of this high-risk product,” Bourke mentioned.
The problem additionally poses a threat to employees exterior the development business.
Joanna McNeill, 37, was recognized with silicosis after unknowingly inhaling silica mud whereas working in administration 90m away from a quarry for 4 years.
“As a mum, it is laborious, that is what impacts me essentially the most, as a result of I’m a single mum of two children who’re 4 and 6,” McNeill mentioned.
“Should you’re there, you are respiratory it in, you are prone to it.
“I need my kids’s (era) to know precisely what (silicosis) is like, (the way in which) we all know what asbestos is,” she mentioned.
Name to motion
Unions and employees are calling for an finish to the importation and manufacturing of engineered stone within the development of family kitchens and loos because of the poisonous silica mud that it exposes employees to.
Hundreds of employees are commonly uncovered to the poisonous mud throughout tunnelling, and development firms “make it tough” for unions to deliver mud screens on website to commonly monitor employees’ publicity, the AWU mentioned in an announcement.
“If we don’t act, we could have 100,000 instances of silicosis (and) greater than 11,000 cancers on this nation,” ACTU Assistant Secretary Liam O’Brien mentioned.
AWU Nationwide Secretary Daniel Walton added that union officers additionally should be given rights to conduct applicable measurements of airborne contaminants underground, together with occurring website with a mud monitor system.
“We additionally know it’s normal for firms to function for days regardless of air flow breaking down. We all know websites the place water suppression is non-existent. And we all know flimsy or broken face marks are being commonly supplied as PPE,” Walton mentioned.
“We want union officers to have the ability to stroll right into a tunneling website at any time to check if mud ranges are unsafe.
“Corporations must also need to mechanically provide all mud monitoring outcomes to the regulator and union promptly, as an alternative of the drawn-out course of that exists in the present day.”
“(We all know) silica publicity is all however sure to be occurring at harmful ranges. Our members are working in environments so dusty they can not see greater than 50 meters in entrance of them. They’re getting lined from head to toe in mud and so they stroll out with that mud on them which continues to unfold,” Walton mentioned.
Lung Basis Australia has known as for a public session on the Nationwide Silicosis Prevention Technique (NSPS) and accompanying Nationwide Motion Plan (NAP).
– With reporting from Emma O’Sullivan
