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Brazil's Steel Industry no Longer a Demon |
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By Mario Osava*
Brazil's Steel Industry no Longer a Demon
VOLTA REDONDA, Brazil - Vanor Marcilio had a blood count of 8,000 leukocytes per cubic mm when he began working as an industrial painter in the Companhia Siderurgica Nacional (CSN), Brazil's national steelworks, in 1980. Seven years later, his white blood cell count had dropped to just over 3,000 per cubic mm.
Marcilio suffers from leukopenia caused by prolonged exposure to benzene, a volatile hydrocarbon derived from coal carbonization and used to produce colorants.
CSN headquarters are located in Volta Redonda, 130 kms from Rio de Janeiro, where many people suffer leukopenia, like in other cities where the steel industry employs thousands of workers.
After 12 years of forced inactivity, during which time he was paid a disability subsidy by the National Institute of Social Security, Marcilio was given a clean bill of health in May 1999, even though his blood count stood at 3,000 leukocytes per cubic mm - less than half the normal amount.
The Factory of Metallic Structures, which provides services to the CSN, admitted him to its training courses. But in January this year he was fired, along with 27 other workers, all of whom suffered leukopenia. The pretext was that they had failed to take full advantage of the course.
These chronically ill workers, who have suffered discrimination due to their illness, which weakens the defence system, have no chance of getting a new job. They are "living dead", in the words of Geraldo Luis Barbosa, the Volta Redonda Construction Workers Union's director of Occupational Health.
At the age of 47, too young to retire, Marcilio occasionally gets casual work, despite the fatigue and pain brought on by any effort. Luckily for him, his wife and one of his three children have jobs.
His colleague Clauci Pereira da Silva, a 46-year-old father of two, has had a similar experience, aggravated by cancer that led to the loss of the frontal bone of his head, which was replaced by a prosthesis in 1997.
"The doctor said the benzene aggravated the tumour," Da Silva told Tierramerica, complaining of constant headaches and dizziness. Due to those symptoms and the drop in leukocytes to 2,700 per cubic mm, he successfully avoided an attempt by the National Institute of Social Security to discharge him, and recuperated his social security benefits.
The municipality of Volta Redonda reported 688 cases of leukopenia up to 1999, not all of which were recognised by the National Institute of Social Security. "Many are unaware that they are sick," said Marcilio. Around 300 people belong to the Association of Leukopenics, which fights for their rights.
This social problem stems from a past marked by pollution, which Brazil's steel industry is trying to leave behind. Of the 13.8 billion dollars in investment projected by the industry for the 1994-2004 period, more than one billion dollars are earmarked for environmental measures, according to Maria Silvia Marques, the president of the CSN and of Brazil's Steelworks Institute.
Environmentalists concede that the CSN, which was privatised in 1993, has undergone a change of attitude in recent years. From 1996 to 1999, it reduced concentrations of benzene in the atmosphere in Volta Redonda by 70 percent, according to the Foundation of Environmental Engineering (FEEMA), the environmental authority of the state of Rio de Janeiro.
In January 2000, the company signed an agreement to solve the biggest problems within two years, and "it has been complying by around 80 percent," said parliamentary Deputy Carlos Minc, chairman of the Environmental Commission of the Legislative Assembly of the state of Rio de Janeiro.
Jose Roberto Araujo, a technical advisor to Minc, acknowledged that the Biological Treatment Station, which the CSN opened last December, reduced - "almost to zero" - the flows of liquid waste, the main source of pollution of the Paraíba del Sur river, which supplies Rio de Janeiro.
Araujo, a chemist who has worked in FEEMA for several years, reported that fish taken out of the Paraíba river, downstream from the CSN, were found to have cancer. The waste pipes were also found to contain carcinogenic substances.
Although chemical pollution levels are not increasing, the contamination will remain "for who knows how long" in the sediment of the river, he explained, adding that the river would have to undergo constant monitoring, because the treatment does not eliminate all pollutants.
The CSN is even attempting to anticipate future environmental requirements, "due to strategic and not only legal reasons," the company's director of environment issues, Luiz Claudio Castro, told Tierramerica.
The international market increasingly values companies that show environmental and social responsibility, which also facilitate access to credit and investment, said Castro.
"Eco-business" opportunities are also mushrooming, he added. For the past two years, the CSN has considered residues a by-product rather than refuse, and sales of waste to the cement and construction industries form an important part of the company's revenues, said Castro, a biologist who has been active in several environmental groups.
With respect to leukopenia, he said it was a widespread social problem inherited from the steel industry and aggravated by the National Institute of Social Security, which "changed its rules" in 1999, sending workers who should have been allowed to retire early due to disability back to work.
Castro's concern is to prevent new cases. The CSN continuously monitors the air in Volta Redonda, which he said already met the strict requirements set for the areas around heavily-travelled roadways in Germany, for example.
* Mario Osava is an IPS correspondent.
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