‘When will it be possible for the Tata Steel management to be proud of our Blast Furnace bread?’ | column Joris Brussels
IJmond
When I write critically about Tata Steel – as an opinion writer in the IJmond you can’t escape that – I usually receive criticism from loyal staff. Not always provided with content provided; I really just have to keep my paws off Tata.
No matter how nuanced I try to deal with the environmental and health-damaging conditions there. Because anyone who knows me knows that I am a supreme chauvinist when it comes to my native village of Velsen-Noord and the steel factories it houses.
gas clouds
My chauvinism was also asked in a book about the influence of the Hoogovens on the IJmond. More than ten years ago I gave the following quote: “Half of my family and group of friends work at Hoogovens. Sometimes I think: What if we hadn’t had Hoogovens here? I think we’ve been sitting here with two strawberry villages and a small fishing town. Well, sometimes we can curse the gas clouds above the IJmond, but they are the clouds of our bread. Our Blast Furnace Bread.”
A quote I still stand by. I therefore take charges against Tata – like many Tata employees and local residents – with a grain of salt. Because yes, salon activists can find everything from above their spelled bagel with humus, but it is our Hoogoven bread.
But on the other hand, the steel mill also seems to be more of a Pandora’s metal box. For as much as I want to look away from all misery; asset flow to suspicious zones is not to be peeked at. My chauvinism loses out more to bewilderment.
Take the news that one in five Tata Steel employees started work in the last five years. And that is not a rough claim by an incendiary action group, but the conclusion of the steel giant itself after questions from this newspaper. In 35 asbestos incidents in the last five years, 1,825 people have been registered who may have had asbestos fibers in their bodies, according to a Tata spokesperson.
Of course, it’s a possibility and not everyone gets sick. And there have been claims for damages that are taken seriously and are incidents to individual employees of clumsiness. Where. Although there are no open sources of asbestos, there are 1,825 continuations of asbestos in five years.
Stadium
Think about that number. With that group of people you can fill all six screens of the Cineworld cinema in Beverwijk almost twice. And exactly half of the seats in the Telstar stadium in IJmuiden. Not all of this group in the distance on the refugee cruise boat that seems to dock in Velsen-Noord in the short term. And by comparison, just over 2,100 inhabitants live in Wijk aan Zee, so those 1,825 people together make up more than 80 percent of the entire Wijk aan Zee population.
When will it become more difficult for the Tata Steel management to be proud of our Blast Furnace Bread? Want that to be necessary. I don’t keep horses from the Hoogovens yet. But I refuse to hang the following text on an embroidered sign above my door:
“East, west, home asbestos.”
Passport
Joris Brussel (1987) is a columnist, writer, (city) poet and communication strategist. He comes from Velsen-Noord and lives in Beverwijk. Every week he gives his opinion here.