The Scottish Hazards Campaign Network campaigns for improved worker health and safety throughout Scotland and joins with others internationally to campaign for improved working conditions throughout the world. It is part of the UK Hazards Campaign and the European Hazards Network.
Deregulation kills. In the last year, the attack on health and safety regulation and enforcement has continued, putting more lives at risk. Lack of enforcement lets unscrupulous employers put profit over people’s lives. The scandal in the food industry is a vivid reminder of how crucial enforcement is. Again, International Workers Memorial Day is more important than ever - reminding us of the price paid by individual workers and their families and of the need to struggle for safe workplaces throughout the world. For information about IWMD and IWMD events in Scotland, see IWMD.
We are mourning the death and celebrating the life of Simon Pickvance
Simon Pickvance, our friend, brilliant colleague and consummate internationalist and networker, died on Friday 23rd November 2012. He had been diagnosed with mesothelioma two years ago, a consequence of one-time day job as a bricklayer as he developed innovative, worker-oriented occupational health support in primary care. Simon was a gentle caring man. In this Primary Care work, he spent his time listening to the concerns of workers and trying to improve their health by making connections with their ill health and their working conditions. He worked tirelessly to improve the lives of ordinary workers.
Simon created Workers' Health International Newsletter, which consolidated international information exchange and cooperation between union and health and safety activists and sympathetic medics and scientists worldwide. He was recently made an Emeritus Fellow of the Collegium Ramazzini. His work was also recognised in awards from the grassroots Construction Safety Campaign and Hazards Campaign. His earlier work as a molecular biologist was noted in John Sulston’s 2002 Nobel Prize lecture.
Simon was active in EWHN, European Work Hazards Network, right from the beginning. He was a key person in the EWHN conference in Sheffield in 1992 and attended the majority of our conferences ever since, facilitating many workshops on different subject such as cancer, working time, stress. In the year before his death, he helped us to organise a very successful one day international seminar on Occupational Cancer. He was an honorary member of the EWHN Steering Group.
To see a memorial written by Laurent Vogel, Director Working Conditions, Health and Safety Department, ETUI (European Trade Union Institute), click here.
SOHAS and Simon's family have set up a memorial website for Simon at http://simon.pickvance.muchloved.com. where anyone can add a story or memory or message about Simon.
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