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As reported last week by Unionsafety, the government's attacks on health & safety legislation and enforcement continues with YOU, the public, being asked to decide on which H&S laws should be scrapped.
Unionsafety has made its comments on the Red Tape Challenge Website via personal comment by Chris Ingram, editor of Unionsafety, but far more comment is required in order to make it clear to the government and Chris Grayling that their lecture to the workers of this country that health and safety is restrictive on business and constricts business growth is totally ludicrous. Nowhere else within the EU does any government see H&S as a burden on business. Hilda Palmer from GM Hazards has perhaps made the strongest argument against the scrapping of health and safety legislation on the government's Red Tape Challenge website so far. Despite questions over the neutrality of the website's moderators, and after at least 6 attempts, they finally published Hilda's damnation of the exercise. Hilda also urged, via her Face Book page, for everyone to add their comments to the Red Tape Challenge website under General Health & Safety section saying: "I posted mistakenly! It is a populist bread and circuses exercise, and I do not think judging from the level of ignorance of the comments on there from the employers/scrap everything side, that they can make much of it. However, we can't sit back and relax as the test is apparently that unpopular laws have to be defended by the minister... we know Grayling is hostile to H&s full stop. But we must comment and also make public the inanity of this exercise." Making her comment on the government's idea that health and safety legislation can be scrapped, Hilda said,
Nor are we told the cost of this lack of compliance by employers which come in at a minimum of £30 billion per year. Nor are we told that of this amount, the employers pay less than 25%, those hurt and their families pay the most, then the state, i.e. tax payers, all of us, pick up the tab in health and benefit costs. Now can anyone tell me why we should behave like ragged trousered philanthropists and subsidise poor employers?" Hilda continues: " Employers aren’t swamped with regulations, there’s less now than there was 40 years ago; they aren’t over enforced, can expect an inspection only once in 38 years (outside of major hazards and apart from incidents), only 1 on 13 major and fatal injuries is even investigated, and in 98% of major injuries there is no enforcement action at all, not even an improvement notice. There is masses of help and advice on hand from HSE and Environmental Health Officers, yet still employers kill and injure and make workers sick through failing to have even basic minimum standards. Health and safety isn’t about conkers bonkers, its about being able to go to the toilet, having a toilet and place to wash hands and eat lunch on building site; about not being chained to desk for 12 hours a day or being subjected to violence and bullying. It’s about decent working conditions, treating workers like human beings. We need to wake up a realise that we won’t know what we had until its gone unless we stop them trying to take away the most fundamental right – to be able to goo to work and come home unharmed at the end of the shift." But perhaps Hilda's final sentence says it all: "Don’t get fooled again folks. Keep all H&S Law!" Following Hilda's comment, Chris Ingram Unionsafety website editor responded: "Spot on Hilda!! The tragedy is that the British people will wake up too late to save those who will inevitably die and suffer debilitating injury as a result of cuts to the HSE budget and the slashing of H&S laws and introduction of a self regulation system of health and safety enforcement. Once again the government just want us to be like the USA – private profit above all else. Successive UK governments have been guilty of this for years, but none have gone as far as this current Tory led coalition! I doubt they will take any notice of the opinions on this site. They have only one thing in mind – decimation of workers rights and health and safety protection. Now moderate this comment off the site, I dare you!!"
"Yesterday an Italian court sentenced the CE of global company to 16 years for murder and the 5 directors to 13 years for manslaughter due to company negligence that led to the deaths in a fire of 7 workers It was public anger and union pressure plus a fantastic public prosecutor that got this into court in first place,the media coverage here is amazing and the death toll has been steadily dropping through out the trial. The Public prosecutor said it is time that directors knew that if they fail to protect their workers H&S and negligence leads to death then they will be held individually responsible THAT is what will stop deaths at work and the law already exists to bring this about -criminal law Italy now leads the world while Britain is heading in opposite direction
If the criminal and the HASAWA were strictly enforced in Britain hundreds of lives could be saved So there you have it, all the argument for not ignoring the governments statement that all Health & Safety legislation is simply a burden on business and simply Red Tape. It is paramount that all concerned with health & safety challenge that cruel and callous government dictate! Read Hilda's comments in full here See also: What Kind Of People Think Protecting Life A Burden? |
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Comments have ranged from the 'scrap them all' through to a defence of the existing legislation to 'we need more H&S enforcement'. But those opposing health and safety, seem to be making the most of the opportunity. 
"This website is blatantly biased in favour of the unevidenced presumption that regulation is all pointless red tape and must be cut, as we are invited to say what we would cut, not what we would keep. There is no evidence provided about the number of people made ill, injured or killed each year by employers failing to comply with H&S laws (up to 1,500 in work-related incidents and up to 50,000 from work-related illnesses including asbestos and other cancers, heart diseases and lung diseases and at least 80% of these are due to poor management of H&S, plus hundreds of thousands made ill and injured). 
One of the first responses to the Red Tape Challenge was from Dorothy Wright of Families Against Corporate Killers who highlights the actions in Europe over workplace deaths as opposed to that of the UK's response: