They stick to the special working environment: hot and humid odor invades the painters

The entire cabin is sandblasted at night, and the cabin is manually sprayed, repainted, and cleaned during the day.

[In the scorching heat, they stick to a special working environment] Squatting and kneeling in a narrow cabin, the hot and odor invades the painters

On July 3, the painters of the shipyard's painting department were mixing paint. Photo by Xue Xiaoqiu

In July, Fuzhou entered the midsummer, hot and humid.

The workshop of Fujian Southeast Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., located in Fuzhou Mawei Port, is filled with the pungent smell of paint. Here, the cabin sections are inverted on a 2-meter-high scaffolding, and more than 20 workers are responsible for sandblasting, painting, and other work. Since the painting work requires maintaining a room temperature of about 26°C and an indoor humidity of 70% to 80%, the workshop is relatively closed, relying only on indoor air conditioning for temperature control and ventilation, and the lighting is also relatively limited.

At 7 o'clock every morning, the painters put on their work clothes with long coats and long pants, put on protective masks, and after the safety meeting, a busy day began...

Backache is common

On the morning of July 3, the reporter came to the painting class (workshop) of the shipyard. Several painters carried paint buckets in and out, and their dark work clothes and shoes were already stained with marks.

In the painting class, the workers first have to sandblast the entire cabin section to make the surface of the hull meet the roughness requirements before painting. Sandblasting is often done at night to facilitate inspections by quality inspectors during the day and subsequent painting, repainting, cleaning and other work.

The reporter noticed that in order to carry out cabin section painting operations, the painters need to climb up the 2-meter-high scaffolding from a 30-centimeter-wide ladder, carefully cross the horizontal fence, and then drill into the cabin from a 40-centimeter-high and 60-centimeter-wide hole. The internal working space has a floor height of only 70 centimeters, and the painters can only squat or kneel inside to work. Therefore, in addition to gas masks and work clothes, the painters are also equipped with headlights on their helmets, and some workers need to tie safety ropes around their waists to ensure safety when going up and down.

Inside the cabin section, when the reporter saw Gao Yuzhen working in the dark, she was kneeling on the boat board with a hunched back, using a flashlight to illuminate and a small brush to clean the narrow cabin.

Sister Gao is 55 years old and comes from Miaoshi Town, Cining County, Zhangjiajie City, Hunan Province. She has been a painter for 10 years. She came to Fuzhou to work in March this year and has not yet fully adapted to the hot summer weather in Fuzhou. Although the room temperature of 26℃ in the workshop is relatively suitable compared to the outdoors, Sister Gao once suffered from heatstroke at noon because she always wore long clothes and long pants to work in the narrow cabin.

After the cabin section is sprayed with paint, it is necessary to report to the quality inspector for inspection of the spraying work. If unqualified parts are found, they need to be repaired and sprayed again. Therefore, repairing and cleaning the cabin is a delicate job, requiring workers to paint every corner with a brush. Sister Gao works 3 to 4 hours in the morning and afternoon respectively, and sometimes needs to work overtime at night. All the time, she needs to bend over and work in a space less than half a meter high. At the end of the day, "backache is common."

The activated carbon core needs to be replaced every 40 minutes

Because of the special work, when using paint for painting, painters must wear gas masks as required regardless of how long it takes.

Sister Gao said that wearing a gas mask to work is not breathable, and in the hot summer, wearing a mask makes it easier to feel shortness of breath and even chest tightness. The reporter noticed that she did not wear any mask when cleaning, only her headscarf. Sister Gao said that cleaning does not require the use of paint, and the paint on the surface of the cabin has dried, so she did not wear a mask, "It is inconvenient to work." When the reporter pointed out that there was a clear pungent smell in the air, Sister Gao said, "I'm used to it."

Although I have only been in the workshop for more than an hour, the reporter already felt some discomfort in his throat. But in the interview, most painters said they were "used to the smell". Li Wenhai, 46, is from Yuechi, Sichuan. He has been a painter for 8 years and is the head of the coating department. He told reporters that when painting every day, the activated carbon core in the filter canister of the gas mask must be replaced every 40 to 50 minutes.

The reporter saw that the gas mask is different from the ordinary cotton mask. The mouth and nose are made of silicone material, and the front end is equipped with a filter canister; the painters who spray paint are "fully armed", wearing a one-piece protective suit, wearing rubber gloves, and equipped with a transparent protective mask. It is understood that there are both particulate matter and toxic gases in the paint spray, so the labor protection of painters must be both dust and toxic. Protective equipment must meet two conditions, the filter cotton is used to prevent dust, and the activated carbon filter canister is used to filter toxic gases.

Li Wenhai said that in addition to protection through masks, workshop ventilation is very important. "Compared to the general home improvement work site, the conditions in the workshop are already very good. There is air conditioning for ventilation, and the sandblasting and painting will be ventilated for more than 8 to 10 hours before work."

Invisible risks

Because the technical threshold for painters is relatively low, the reporter learned in the sandblasting workshop that most of the painters here are around 40 or 50 years old, and half of them are women.

38-year-old Tan Denghua is petite and is considered a "young person" among her co-workers. She is also from Hunan and is a fellow villager of Gao. She has been working as a painter for more than 2 years. Last year, she came to the shipyard with her husband to work.

Tan Denghua said that she had worked in many assembly line jobs in factories in Guangdong before, and chose to be a painter mainly because the income was relatively high, 4,000 to 5,000 yuan a month. "My two sons are studying in my hometown, and the living expenses are high. I work here to save some money. I will go home to take care of the children after two or three years." She said that she also knows that this job has risks, "I know that doing it for a long time is not good for my health."

According to the official website of the Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Control of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, benzene and benzene derivatives in paints and coatings are easy to evaporate, mainly absorbed through the respiratory tract, and a small amount can also be absorbed by the skin. The formaldehyde contained in building materials releases 20% to 30% more than usual during high temperature weather in summer. These chemicals have irritating effects on human skin, conjunctiva, respiratory mucosa, etc. After long-term exposure to high concentrations, leukocytopenia will occur, and severe cases will develop aplastic anemia.

"Everyone knows that there are harmful substances in paint, and now few young people are willing to be painters." Zheng Zhilong, deputy section chief of the painting section of Southeast Shipyard, told reporters that the shipyard's ship products are currently small, and most of the work such as painting and cleaning can only be done manually. The best protection method is to strictly require ventilation of the working environment and do a good job of labor protection.

At the end of the interview, heavy rain fell from the gloomy sky. When Gao finished her morning work and took out her phone, the reporter saw her WeChat signature: "Tomorrow will be better."