By: Joseph Jones
Workers! At times I feel the need for tears. Emotionally moved by the unsafe practices by you at the workplaces, I am overwhelmed by some of the conditions the images of devastation and hardship by some of you in St.Kitts-Nevis is heartbreaking.
It shows how you the worker have to perform without safety gears, my mind could not process the suffering of you so my heart is crushed, teared poured from my eyes, my reaction is understandable.
It is said sometimes crying is the only appropriate response to the conditions at work and workplaces to the suffering encountered.
Hello! As you encounter the inhumanity, suffering that will wreak havoc you must respond by identifying the occupational safety and health problems by giving the best idea how the work can be done after all what changes can be made.
You would agree with me I believe that workers are familiar with the daily process of production and any problem involved.
Hello! This approach is important because it stimulates the “Awareness” and involvement. Of course this approach is important. However tactful a Safety Representative may be, there will always be some workers who do not want to want to know. Now let me look for example at two serious surveys.
1. The effect of chemicals at work may be hard to trace this way-it may not occur to workers that headaches, dizziness or skin rashes are linked to substances they work with. Many long term chronic effects-loss of breath and tiredness may simply be put down to “growing old. Alternately, symptoms may not appear clearly until permanent damage has been done.
2. Noise- This is serious. I wrote about it already and I am doing it again. Listen now-Loss of hearing is one of the most common of all industrial diseases in the world and we in St.Kitts-Nevis is no exception. The construction industry, airports, textile industry bottling plants are just some examples of local industries where workers are likely to be exposed to high noise levels.
Workers! Keep this in your head. Prolonged exposure to too much noise not only causes deafness but it can affect other parts of the body giving rise to physical and psychological stress.
Additionally, please to remember that noise also contributes to accidents by making it impossible for workers to hear to warning signs. I hope you are listening and reading.*NOTE WELL*Trade Union Education is still our number one priority and elsewhere in our document in our leadership just as we fight for comfort in the workplaces of workers that this Union represents. As you would have heard time and time again ‘Prevention is better than cure.’
Thank you.