Major North West H&S Conference Announced

A major conference is being held in Liverpool on 13th July 2010 entitled: Health and Safety: A New Agenda At Work?

Following a very successful conference around health and safety held last year, Liverpool based Institute of Employment Rights will be launching their new booklet on the crisis facing health and safety at this year's conference. With the authors Professor Steve Tombs and David Whyte attending to present the booklet, this conference is one of major importance to all Union Safety Reps.

The information leaflet shown on the left contains full details of the conference and is reproduced here:

Workers in the UK are suffering from a crisis in the enforcement of workplace safety regulations. Moreover, evidence suggests that hard working health and safety reps are facing victimisation and blacklisting when they try to fill the enforcement gaps left by lack of HSE inspection.

With Labour's election victory in 1997, there seemed to be a renewed impetus for enforcement: between 1997/98 and 1999/00, HSE prosecutions rose by 20%.

Since then, however, HSE enforcement activities have declined markedly, not least within the context of the Government's rolling out of the Hampton Agenda, requiring withdrawal from unnecessary regulatory oversight: from 1997/98 - 2008/09, HSE prosecutions declined by 32%; the number of prohibition notices issued decreased by 29% and the proportion of RIDDOR reports investigated has fallen by 63% since 1999/2000.

Yet in 2008/09, there were 180 fatal workplace injuries - a figure omitting significant numbers of recorded occupational deaths - as well as almost 30,000 major and over 100,000 less serious injuries recorded.

Plainly, deregulation comes at the expense of workers' safety. Yet this is a crisis that is set to deepen. Low levels of government funding for the HSE, and the further pressures generated by economic recession, as well as an internationally fragmented labour market, all point to the need to keep workers' health and safety firmly on the agenda.

This crisis will be detailed in a forthcoming booklet from IER to be launched at this Conference. The authors, Steve Tombs and David Whyte, will comprehensively analyse hitherto unpublished inspection and enforcement data, generated by a series of Freedom of Information requests, to illustrate the deregulatory policy shifts underlying the crisis.
 
Rita Donaghy, author of a report commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions entitled One Death is Too Many, will outline her findings following an inquiry into the causes of fatal accidents in the construction industry.

Union speakers from UCATT and the GMB will add their experiences to the debate, as well as Neil Hope-Collins from the HSE employee's trade union Prospect.

You can book on-line direct from IER from their website here

Source: IER

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