Japan's government in 1992 dropped a bill to ban the use and sale of asbestos because of opposition of labor unions, it was reported Friday.
The Japanese Trade Union Confederation, the largest labor organization in Japan, rejected the Social Democratic Party's proposed ban on asbestos on grounds that a sudden restriction would create anxiety among workers about their jobs, the Asahi Shimbun reported Friday.
In the late 1980s, civic groups collected some 630,000 signatures on petitions demanding legal restrictions on asbestos. Masanori Goto, then a lower house member of the Social Democratic Party, and others compiled the bill to prohibit blue and brown asbestos from being used in products, and to bans sales of products containing asbestos, which has been linked to several diseases.
The party submitted the bill to an extraordinary Diet session in 1992 but it was shelved after the Japan Asbestos Association, a group of manufacturers, insisted that the work environment had improved and no health hazards were likely. The Diet was also deliberating a political scandal at the time and had no time to discuss the asbestos bill.
© Copyright 2005 by United Press International
