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Bhopal to Detroit:
Two Women Who Survived the World’s Worst Industrial Disaster Bear Witness
A Solidarity Event and Reception with
Women Labor Leaders and Bhopal Disaster Survivors
Friday, May 7 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Rashida Bee & Champa Devi Shukla
will speak at
MCHT Bldg (former Kresge bldg)
2727 Second Ave
Rm. 101
Detroit
Free, lighted, fenced parking behind the building
S. of Masonic Auditorium
N. of Cass Tech High
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For information on the event::
(Sierra Club)
(Ecology Center) ext. 114,
For information on the incident at Bhopal
This year marks the 20th anniversary of the Union Carbide gas leak that killed more than 20,000 people in Bhopal, India, the world’s worst industrial disaster. Two generations of victims continue to suffer the consequences. Ten years after the incident, most survivors had received less than $500 of Union Carbide’s $470 million compensation payout. Union Carbide bought Dow Chemical 2001, and maintains to this day that it has no liability in the industrial disaster.
Rashida Bee and Champa Devi Shukla, along with thousands of others, were injured in the Bhopal disaster and went on to found a union of women workers to fight for better labor conditions and wages. In 1989 the labor battle culminated in a 469-mile march to New Delhi. More than 100 women, many of who had sold their jewelry and other valuables to be part of the march, presented a petition with their demands to the Prime Minister. The campaign eventually won them a wage increase and other important concessions.
Bee and Shukla leveraged their union’s newfound political power to seek
justice from the chemical giants responsible for the gas leak disaster.
Since 1984 Bee has lost six family members to cancer. Shukla, who has
one grandchild born with congenital deformities, lost her husband and
her health.
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Sponsored by
Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS)
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice
Ecology Center
Guild/Sugar Law Center
Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) Region 9
Public Interest Research Groups In Michigan (PIRGIM)
Southeast Michigan Coalition for Occupational Safety & Health (SEMCOSH)
Sierra Club Environmental Justice Project
Sierra Club Southeast Michigan Group
United Steel Workers of America (USWA) District 2 |
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workers safety and health