Unions, including the Australian Nursing and Midwifery Federation (ANMF), are calling on Work Health and Safety Ministers to strengthen protections for workers – including nurses – by lowering the exposure limits for nine “cancer-causing” toxic chemicals.
The ANMF, together with the ACTU and other public health organisations, sent a joint letter urging WHS Ministers to adopt recommendations made by the national regulator, Safe Work Australia, to lower workplace exposure limits for the nine hazardous chemicals.
The nine chemicals include formaldehyde (the key ingredient for formalin), a highly toxic and carcinogenic gas, which nurses who collect and preserve tissue samples are regularly exposed to. Other chemicals include known carcinogen benzene, respirable crystalline silica, as well as chlorine, copper, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen dioxide, and titanium dioxide.
Research by the ACTU revealed that more than 1 in 10 workers in Australia are regularly exposed to hazardous substances at work including dusts, gases, vapours and fumes that cause harm to health and can lead to illness, disease and premature death.
Recognising the significant harm caused by hazardous substances, in 2019 WHS Ministers agreed to review the Workplace Exposure Standards for airborne contaminants (WES list) to ensure that they adequately protected workers from the adverse health effects.
Two years later, after independently reviewing more than 600 workplace chemicals, Safe Work Australia recommended lowering chemical exposure limits.
Following this, WHS Ministers subsequently agreed to health-based limits for all but nine of the chemicals, requesting further assessment in response to some employer groups claiming that evidence was not considered in the analysis and that the recommendations, if adopted would result in significant regulatory burden.
Unions argue efforts to cause delay have resulted in workers continually being exposed to these toxic chemicals. Safe Work Australia’s Regulatory Impact Analysis has once more proposed lowering workplace exposure limits.
Unions say the outdated chemical exposure limits for the nine toxic chemicals should be lowered immediately ahead of new Workplace Exposure Limits coming into effect from 1 December.
“Every day, tradies in construction, nurses and technicians handling tissue samples, the workers who keep our drinking water safe, pharmaceutical workers, lab assistants and wood manufacturing workers are being exposed to toxic cancer-causing chemicals at unsafe levels,” ACTU Assistant Secretary, Liam O’Brien said.
“State and Territory Work Health and Safety Ministers have an opportunity to demonstrate that workers’ lives matter more than industry pressure to keep using these chemicals at dangerous levels.”
Join the call to protect workers from toxic chemicals by signing the ACTU’s petition here
