Bhopal to Detroit: Hear the Survivors Tell Their Story
Two Women Who Survived the World’s Worst Industrial Disaster Bear Witness
In Honor of Worker Health and Safety, Corporate Responsibility,
Women’s Power in the Work Place and Justice for Bhopal Victims
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
Recipients of the 2004 Goldman prize
Bhopal Disaster Survivors and Founders of the Women’s Stationary Union
will speak at
MCHT bldg (Kresge bldg) Rm. 101
2727 Second Ave; Detroit, MI
S. of Masonic Auditorium, N. of Cass Tech High
For More Information:
Rhonda Anderson (Sierra Club)
313.965.0052, rhonda.anderson@sierraclub.org
Brad van Guilder (Ecology Center)
734.663.2400 ext. 114, bradvg@ecocenter.org
Refreshments provided, Free and open to the public
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.
For information on the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal please visit http://www.bhopal.net
Sponsored by
Arab Community Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS);
Detroiters Working for Environmental Justice (DWEJ); Ecology Center;
Guild/Sugar Law Center; Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition (MEJC);
Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical and Energy (PACE) Workers 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