Buenos Aires Herald 
The Buenos Aires subway will not be operating on Monday between 1 and 3 p.m. Subte workers are striking to denounce the presence of asbestos in the city’s underground transport system after the death of a former driver, whose cancer they say was caused by the banned substance.
The Subway and Premetro Workers’ Association announced the strike on Friday to protest the passing of Walter Berhovet, a former driver of the D line, whom they say died of lung cancer as a result of asbestos exposure.
“This is the fifth time we have to mourn a death due to asbestos exposure,” the union wrote in an X post. “We don’t want to keep lamenting preventable deaths. No-one should die in their workplace.”
According to the union’s statement, Berhovet was just one of 114 subway workers whom the Work Risks Superintendency has acknowledged have been affected in some way because of asbestos. Of those, four have cancer.
Highlighting that the use of asbestos has been banned in Argentina since 2003, the union said that employees worked “for years” without being informed of the presence of the substance in the subway.
“The company and authorities denied it,” they said, until it was proven that asbestos, a carcinogenic mineral, was used for insulation on B line trains, but “was also found in cars and installations from other lines.”
The workers demanded the remaining subway cars with asbestos that are still operating be removed, as well as a decontamination plan. They also called for current and former employees to be offered a scheme of medical screening for asbestos-related disease.
Emova, the company that operates the subway, said in a statement that they lamented the passing of Berhovet, and denied that it was related to the asbestos issue.
“The worker was hospitalized due to a condition related to a pre-existing medical condition, of complex evolution,” Emova said in a statement on Friday. “There are no conclusive clinical elements at the moment that make it possible to establish a direct relation between his state of health and his work history.”
In another statement released Monday, Emova said that it “continues to work” on a plan to remove the asbestos that has been in place since 2018 in the entire subway system, and that local labor authorities have determined that working conditions on the subway are “adequate.”
Emova also said that they have a “health vigilance plan,” that subway employees undergo yearly medical exams at the Hospital Británico, and that “over 4,000 tests” have found that the air quality is “adequate for good health.”