I thought I’d be a bit more forthright because expecting mining companies and government agencies to actually care about people exposed to lead is looking more and more like something that doesn’t happen.

Glencore is Australia’s biggest employer of lead risk workers, and since this whole thing started with them, keeping them in the spotlight seems quite reasonable to me. But don’t ever forget that there are a lot more industries involved that expose workers to lead risks.

I approached Glencore about 5 months ago to point out their (government-mandated) workplace health and safety procedures for managing lead biohazard safety of lead risk workers was harming their workers.

The safety procedures were formulated over 40 years ago when a lead exposure management policy was put in place in the US, which removed workers from lead exposure if their blood lead levels went over 60ug/dl. Once the worker’s blood lead level reduced below 40ug/dl, which was interpreted as indicating that absorbed lead had left the body, they were allowed to go back to work. 

The only thing that has changed in that policy is that the blood lead levels have been halved to 30ug/dl and 20ug/dl respectively. That represents over 40 years of sloth, disinterest and disregard for the safety of lead workers on the part of occupational safety regulators. I had initially added ignorance to that list, but that’s not true because they know it’s wrong.

What’s wrong with this decades old policy is that a falling blood lead level on removal from lead exposure does NOT mean any significant amount of lead has been lost, it just indicates that the lead has gone to other organs, and bone. If you’re reasonably healthy (no cancer) and an adult male, almost all the lead you absorb ends up in your bones (about 95%), where it stays and screws up your health for the next 30-40 years or so, if you live that long. The story for females is infinitely worse, but in a different way.

You could reasonably think that having found out that the existing workplace health and safety policy for lead risk workers was causing long-term harm to their workers, that Glencore would have welcomed suggestions on how to fix the problem. That’s certainly what I thought, but Swiss-owned multi-nationals have other priorities it seems, and avoiding long-term harm to their workers isn’t one of them. Denial and obfuscation, in whatever form, is how they handle things.

I pointed out that the potential for future legal action by lead workers who discovered their health had been screwed up by lead exposure. I suggested that Glencore HAD to know about the total body lead burden of workers to manage that risk. I’m talking about thousands of workers, potentially anyone who has done lead risk in Mt Isa for the last 40 years or so. 

As long as it’s cheaper to handle worker law suits with out of court settlements and NDAs, denying there is a problem is probably reasonable from their viewpoint. In the absence of a working lead burden management policy, that almost makes sense in a truly disgusting way, since admitting there is a problem potentially opens a Pandora’s box of class actions by former workers. Then again, they had the defense that they were following regulatory mandates.

I think that it’s monumentally stupid and short-sighted view but who knows what goes on at head office. A corporate mentality that would rather spend resources on legal fees than even think of fixing a long-standing environmental health issue is completely at odds with their “public image” of a good community citizen.

I’ve pointed out that a woman of child-bearing age who has worked in lead risk work is carrying an awful legacy from the lead she has absorbed, because that lead will be passed to her unborn child through the placenta, and via her breast milk if she breast-feeds her child. That’s a case Glencore couldn’t win, about harm to a lead-affected mother and her lead-affected child.

I still have an issue with imagining how any company can miss seeing the potential for legal disaster in that scenario. Are their legal advisers so arrogant they can’t see that? Or does Glencore have some kind of “get out of jail” free card to avoid class actions? Then again, most of the lead risk workers are men, so maybe it’s no big deal.

But Glencore could defuse the legal liability of managing lead accumulation in lead risk workers by measuring accumulated bone lead and removing the lead. Surely, doing that would be much less expensive than endless litigation.

It would be a damn sight better for the workers too.

But since this is about trying to encourage Glencore to show a bit of sense, let’s look at what else is at stake. Lead affected adults suffer reduced cognitive ability, poorer decision making, and are more likely to be violent. They are more likely to die of poor decisions and more likely to die of cardiovascular disease, more likely to get cancer, renal disease and the list goes on. What does it say about a company’s basic culture if it ignores the consequences of it’s action, or in this the consequences of it’s inaction?

It is important to point out that inaction isn’t a crime within the scope of mandated lead worker safety procedures. I would not want to criticize Glencore for a failure to follow the rules, but following the rules blindly, without even an attempt to come up with something better, despite the fact that they now KNOW they are causing harm? That’s hardly praiseworthy.

And in that sense, the problem isn’t primarily with Glencore. It lies with the regulatory authorities (like Safe Work Australia) that have been too spineless to change something they know is wrong. This is not the way occupational health protection should work, and this appears to reflect failures at every level of government.

We have the technology and the knowledge to manage lead exposure risks as well as lead exposure. The problem is so neatly defined, the causes known, and the solution so neatly packaged that if we can’t eliminate this travesty of occupational safety, it’s because the government agencies are working actively to avoid doing anything.

We have the knowledge required to do something provided we have the political will. If common sense in our Health services translates to pressure on Safe Work Australia to update their ignorant and damaging policies, lead risk employers like Glencore will have to follow suit. This is only going to happen if it’s driven by community involvement and concern.