아래는 스위스 제네바에 있는 IndustriALL(국제통합제조산별노련이며 140개국 5천만명 이상 노동자가 가입)에서 작성한 5월 19일자 포스팅입니다.
모리셔스는 인도양에 위치한 작은 섬나라로 과거 영국이 식민지였으며 아름다운 자연환경으로 신혼여행지로 각광 받고 있습니다
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5월 12일, 모리셔스 의회는 남아있는 석면 공공 임대 주택을 철거하기로 가결했습니다. 이는 노동계급 가족과 지역사회에 제기된 위험성을 뒤늦게나마 인정한 것입니다. IndustriALL 가맹 노조인 공공·민간 부문 노동자 연맹(CTSP)과 건설·금속·목재 및 관련 산업 노동조합(CMWEU)에게 이번 투표는 자신들의 정당성을 입증받는 순간입니다. 이 두 노조는 수십 년간 철거 캠페인을 벌여왔습니다.
하지만 노조 지도자들은 조심스러운 입장입니다. 의회의 선언이 곧 철거 명령은 아니기 때문입니다. 그들은 모리셔스 석면 주택을 둘러싼 투쟁이 아직 끝나지 않았다고 말합니다.
역사적 기록에 따르면, 1962년 사이클론 '캐롤(Carol)'과 '알릭스(Alix)'가 모리셔스를 휩쓸었을 때 8명이 사망하고 10만 명의 이재민이 발생하는 등 큰 참사가 벌어졌습니다. 노동자 정착촌이 대부분 파괴되자, 정부는 이재민들을 위해 3,113채의 공공 주택을 즉각적으로 건설했습니다.
그러나 당시 선택된 건축 자재는 저렴하고 내구성이 좋아 영국 식민지 전역에서 널리 쓰이던 시멘트와 석면의 혼합물이었습니다. 60년이 지난 지금, 그 주택에 사는 사람들은 여전히 그 결정의 대가를 자신들의 폐 건강으로 치르고 있습니다.
노조 캠페인의 기원은 당국이 외면했던 문제의 규모를 드러낸 한 사건에 있습니다. 1999년 조합원이자 석면 주택 거주자인 클로드 마르게리트(Claude Marguerite)가 석면 노출로 인한 공격적인 암인 중피종으로 사망했습니다. 그의 사후, 맨체스터 대학과 협력하여 그의 폐 조직 10g에 대한 석면 섬유 검사를 진행한 결과, 8만 6천 개의 석면 입자가 확인되었습니다. 이 충격적인 결과는 노조에 정부를 압박할 과학적 증거를 제공했고 대중의 인식을 깨우는 대규모 캠페인에 불을 붙였습니다.
세계보건기구(WHO) 등에 따르면, 석면의 미세한 섬유에 장기간 노출되면 치명적인 질환이 발생합니다. 특히 중피종은 노출 후 수십 년이 지나서야 나타나며 진단 후 평균 생존 기간이 약 1년에 불과합니다. 또한 폐가 딱딱하게 굳는 석면폐증은 치료법이 없으며, 폐암 발병 위험 역시 심각하게 높입니다.
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19 May, 2026On 12 May, the Mauritian parliament voted to demolish the remaining asbestos social houses, a long-overdue recognition of the dangers posed to working-class families and communities. For the Confederation Des Travailleurs des Secteurs Publique et Prive (CTSP), an IndustriALL affiliate, as well as the Construction, Metal, Wooden and Related Industries Workers Union (CMWEU) , the vote is a moment of vindication. These two unions have campaigned for demolition for decades.
However union leaders are cautious. A parliamentary declaration is not a demolition order. The struggle over Mauritius asbestos houses, they say, is not over yet.
According to historical records, when cyclones Carol and Alix tore through Mauritius in 1962, they left devastation on a scale the island had rarely seen with eight people dead, over a hundred injured and 100 000 people left homeless. Nearly all the workers’ settlements in their path were flattened. The government’s response was swift: 3,113 social houses were immediately built to resettle the displaced.
However, the material chosen was a mixture of cement and asbestos which was cheap, durable and widely used across the British colonies then. Sixty years later, the people living in those houses are still paying for that decision with their lungs. In Mauritius, where residents of the social estates have lived alongside deteriorating asbestos panels for six decades, the full toll of the 1962 construction programme may not yet be visible in the mortality data.
Although Mauritius has banned asbestos imports through the Consumer Protection Act, the Dangerous Chemicals Control Act and the Constitution the restrictions have since been waived by law amendments, a move that unions have condemned. Further, Mauritius has not ratified International Labour Organization (ILO) Asbestos Convention 162 which calls for the substitution and elimination of asbestos, medical surveillance and compensation for workers exposed to asbestos, the right of workers to information about asbestos hazards, safe removal and disposal procedures and the responsibility of employers and states to prevent exposure at source.
The IndustriALL executive committee supported the call, by 12 African countries, to amend the Rotterdam Convention to include chrysotile asbestos on the list of hazardous industrial chemicals and has demonstrated against the asbestos trade.
A death that changed everything
The unions’ campaign origins lie in a case that exposed the scale of what the authorities had ignored. Claude Marguerite, a union member and resident of one of the asbestos estates, died of mesothelioma, in 1999, an aggressive cancer of the lining of the lungs and chest wall caused by asbestos exposure. After his death, the CMWEU went to the Supreme Court of Mauritius to obtain permission to exhume his body. It was a legally and emotionally tense decision, but the union’s leadership judged that without hard scientific evidence, the authorities would continue to look away.
Working with the University of Manchester, researchers conducted an asbestos fibre count on 10 grams of Marguerite’s lung tissue. The results were stark: 86,000 asbestos particles were identified. The findings gave the union the evidence it needed and ignited a mass public awareness campaign that would force the government to act.
A disease that does not forgive
According to the World Health Organization and International Agency for Research on Cancer guidance, asbestos is not a single hazard but a cluster of them. Prolonged exposure to its microscopic fibres, which lodge permanently in lung tissue and cannot be expelled, causes a range of serious and fatal conditions. Mesothelioma is the most feared: it typically presents decades after exposure, responds poorly to treatment and carries an average survival rate of about a year from diagnosis. Asbestosis, a chronic scarring of the lung tissue, causes progressive breathlessness and has no cure. Lung cancer risk is significantly higher in those exposed to asbestos.
Two decades of silence
In 2001 the government persuaded in part by the union campaign agreed to commission a national investigation into the adverse impact of asbestos. A Commonwealth asbestos expert, John Addison, was brought in to lead it. He had previously worked alongside Reeaz Chuttoo, then CMWEU’s technical adviser, on the decommissioning and asbestos removal at a sugar factory in Beau Plan in the Northern district of Pamplemousse.
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Mauritius slowly moves to demolish asbestos legacy
