50,000 workers are killed each year – we owe it to them to do more

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By Daniel Shears

Tuesday was International Workers’ Memorial Day, marked by rallies, speeches and services to mark the passing of the 50,000 people killed by work in the UK each year.

50,000 people.

That’s how many people died in the UK from accidents on site, and on the roads; from the results of asbestos exposure and electrocution; and from falling through roofs and from scaffolding.

50,000 women, men and children. Mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends and colleagues.

That’s almost 10 times the number of delegates that attend Party conference each year. Enough to fill a Premier League football stadium.

Almost all of these deaths are preventable. But because as a nation we tend to treat health and safety as an inconvenience, a burdensome exercise involving ‘red tape’ and leading to a ‘conkers bonkers’ mentality, we don’t take the issue anywhere near as seriously as we should do.

And, unfortunately, our Labour Government is more guilty than most.

Workplace safety in the UK is the responsibility of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). It inspects high-risk industries – construction, manufacturing, nuclear, chemical, agriculture – and public services – the NHS, education, police and fire services. It also develops Government policy on health and safety.

It’s staffed by conscientious, hard-working, intelligent civil servants. Inspectors, policymakers, specialists and scientists. A world away from useless pen pushers or faceless bureaucrats. These are the people who investigate every workplace death, and ensure that we don’t have a Buncefield incident every other week.

The Government doesn’t see it quite like this, however. Since 2001, dozens upon dozens of Inspectors have left the organisation. There are now more traffic wardens employed in London than HSE Inspectors to cover the millions of workplaces in Great Britain.

The Government has instead treated health and safety regulation as a burden on business. Inspectors have been directed to concentrate on voluntary measures, advice and guidance, rather than prosecution. HSE headquarters in London has effectively closed, with posts moved away from the policy hub of Westminster to Bootle. The loss of expertise and sheer manpower has been savage.

We are told that Britain has the best health and safety record in the world, but the figures above don’t lie.

Fortunately for the UK workforce, help is at hand.

Research has shown that workers are 50% less likely to have a serious injury at work simply by being a member of a trade union. This is because trade union Health and Safety Representatives spot problems before accidents occur; ensure that risk assessments are performed properly; and negotiate with employers to make certain that risks to safety and health are understood and controlled.

Being a Health and Safety Rep can be a thankless task. It’s a voluntary position, unpaid, which involves a lot of hard work in communicating and engaging with your colleagues, and negotiating with management. It’s a misunderstood role that in most people’s mind brings forth a white, middle-aged man with a hard hat, tabard and clipboard, waiting to find fault and lay blame.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Health and Safety Reps come in all shapes, sizes and colours and from all backgrounds. They aren’t boffins, geeks or nerds. They’re people with a passion to make things better for their fellow workers, who take a common sense approach, and can speak to their management on behalf of their colleagues. They have the most powerful set of rights of any union steward, and they exercise them responsibly.

Most importantly, they know the difference that they can make. The rewards for doing the role well means that thousands of workers are not hurt or killed by work. By working with employers to develop joint solutions, and holding those employers to account when these are not implemented, they make unionised workplaces safer and healthier for everyone.

And they have never been more necessary.

The World is entering a period of recession which will see employers cut back on staffing levels, and on health and safety provision. This will undoubtedly place more workers at greater risk of serious injury, illness and death in the future.

One of the implications of this is the devastating impact that will be felt on mental health in the workplace.

With workers under ever increasing pressure due to job losses, workplace change and heightened expectations on those remaining in post, the recession will likely lead to am explosion in stress and mental health conditions.

The HSE have developed comprehensive management standards to properly assess risks from stress, but these are not well understood by managers, and with fewer Inspectors in post, the driver of enforcement action is reduced.

Safety reps therefore have a critical role to play in holding management to account; communicating to colleagues on how they can mitigate stress; and in ensuring that the Management Standards are properly employed to assess and manage risks to mental health from stress.

This is why GMB used Workers Memorial Day on Tuesday to demand more from the Government on health and safety. To call upon them to reverse the spending cuts made to the HSE; to introduce legal duties on safety and health for directors of companies and businesses; to ensure that breaches of health and safety law are prosecuted, particularly when corporate negligence is apparent; and to give Health and Safety Representatives improved legal rights that help them to compel their employers to action.

The next election is at most a year away. There is enough time to enact a legislative package and policy initiatives to set the above in stone. It would have a transformative effect on health and safety performance in the UK; would leave a lasting legacy from the Labour Government on safety measure to match those of the 1970s; and it might just mean that future generations are not confronted with the outrage of 50,000 dead workers per year. We owe to their families and their work colleagues to try.

More: Judith Hackitt interview, The Times.

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