USW Women of Steel Crusade Against Toxic Trade; to Demonstrate Testing Products for Lead

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/USW-Women-Steel-Crusade-Against/story.aspx?guid={FD7E8CCB-40C2-4D37-9EAF-C6DB17596D41}

USW Women of Steel Crusade Against Toxic Trade; Hosts Session to Demonstrate Testing Products for Lead

Last update: 11:28 a.m. EST Nov. 17, 2008
TEXARKANA, Texas, Nov 17, 2008 /PRNewswire-USNewswire via COMTEX/ -- Tuesday, November 18, 2008
5:00 pm

Theron Jones Early Literacy Center
2600 West 15th Street
Texarkana, TX 75501

The United Steelworkers (USW) Women of Steel (WOS) is hosting a lead screening session to educate families about potentially toxic products and the bad trade policies that are allowing them into our homes. The product screenings are part of the USW's international "Protect Our Kids - Stop Toxic Imports" campaign.

Members of the community are invited to bring toys and other imported items to the Early Literacy Center, where they will be screened for lead and where the USW will provide safety and educational material. The USW's Women of Steel are conducting the lead-screening tests here and across the United States and Canada.

"We're hoping our campaign helps find poisoned products so we can get them out of our homes, but we also want to draw attention to the root of the problem - bad trade deals," said Jackie Boyce. "These cheap goods from countries like China have an expensive price that is threatening the health and safety of our children and families."

Over the past year, the USW Women of Steel have conducted lead screening tests similar to the Texarkana event in more than 30 cities across North America to educate families about this threat of lead contaminated toys and other products.
"Products we made safe through regulation of U.S. manufacturers are coming in poisonous through a back door in trade policy," said Dr. Herbert Needleman, a University of Pittsburgh professor who pioneered lead research and treatments 30 years ago. Dr. Needleman said he was deeply disappointed that "decades of progress through research have been reversed."

USW President Leo W. Gerard has spearheaded the second Steelworkers "Get the Lead Out" campaign. "The USW has a strong legacy of fighting to protect American families, playing a key role to 'get the lead out' of most products and goods by the end of the 1970s," Gerard recalled. "Our nation is at another crossroads right now and it is time to change course and reverse the influx of toxic goods finding their way onto our store shelves."

FULL story at link.

[ensho]

1. more power to them

nt