Health & Safety A Moral And Legal Issue That Needs Defending
CWU's Health and Safety fringe meeting held at it's annual confefence in Bournemouth this mid-day was saw a packed attendance of USRs and conference delegates listening to Lord Bill McKenzie warning that the government attacks on Health and Safety requires us to be vigil and to defend strongly, the existing legislation and framework.
Labour's health and safety spokesman Lord Bill McKenzie described government plans to weaken workplace regulations as "frightening".
Reductions in workplace inspections, large-scale cuts to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and a new "categorisation" of industries placed the UK's reputation for having one of the best safety records in Europe at risk, he warned.
Cuts to the HSE were "draconian," Lord McKenzie said, while identifying whole industrial sectors as low-risk, medium-risk or high-risk was "a folly," particularly as this classification will determine whether or not workplaces will receive pro-active inspections in the future.
"This approach looks at the accident record of an industry as a whole rather than at specific jobs," he explained.
"And the concept of having huge areas of work with no pro-active inspections is frightening."
Health and safety at work is, the shadow minister continued, "a moral, legal and business issue.
"Moral, because everyone who goes out to work should have the right to return home safely afterwards. It's obviously a legal issue when one looks at the body of legislation that exists, and it's a business issue - and this is where I feel the Tories get it wrong - because companies with better health and safety systems invariably have better business systems too."
The first comprehensive health and safety at work legislation was back in 1974, an Act of Parliament that, Lord McKenzie recalled, "was introduced with some consensus, but I do feel that consensus is now coming to an end."
As an example, he highlighted the potential dangers of the forthcoming Lofstedt Review - which the government has commissioned to investigate possible changes to the law - and the changed political environment, within which jokes and "myths" about health and safety are becoming commonplace among senior politicians.
"This is a very difficult time and there is pressure on the trade union movement to be particularly vigilant," the shadow minister continued."I want to work with you to keep the health and safety cause alive. We mustn't let the government slip this under the radar."
CWU national health, safety and environment officer Dave Joyce thanked Lord McKenzie for attending and said: "Of course, Labour didn't get everything right, but under this terrible Tory/LibDem coalition, there's a policy of attacking health and safety with Daily Mail-style stories and straw-man arguments."
Source: CWU
