From EU countries to the 3rd world and Eastern Europe
Workshop organisers : Denmark and the Netherlands
Machines of the Danish Hellesens battery factory were sold to Danish Polish batteries in the late 80's when the production closed down. Hundreds of jobs were lost.
The machines were exported to Poland were a joint venture was set up in buildings of a former state owned battery factory. The safety equipment of the machines was removed and operators had to work with toxic Manganese Dioxide powder under conditions that would never have been allowed in Denmark.
All the knowledge of the Danish workers about how to operate the processes safely was lost also. Now the Danish working environment Network AAA is establishing contacts between workers in Denmark and Poland to make sure that the company and the authorities apply similar safety and health standards in this factory as when it would operate in Denmark.
* The participants of the workshop represented Denmark, Holland, England, Finland, Costa Rica, India and Japan. They agreed that it's esential that contacts between workers of companies that export risks (installations, machines, dangerous substances, pestices) and workers to which the risks are transferred should meet in a very early stage. We want to achieve that with the help of the EWHN and this website. If you want to get into contact with workers in another country to prevent the dumping of risks, send a message to frank.nijman@wxs.nl.
Other results are :
* We are going to document cases of transfer of risks and strategies to prevent the dumping of risks (send us your case stories !)
* We are going to stimulate and activate trade unions and workers representatives in Multi National Companies to take action