New Health & Safety E-Petition Submitted

With a general election less than two months away, as usual health and safety takes a back seat and is never usually mentioned in political campaigns.

Whilst this is generally because previous potential governments have not had health and safety on their agendas and part of their election campaign manifesto, this year 2010, and 36 years after the introduction of the Health and Safety at Work Act, sees a political party with a manifesto which attacks not only the principles of preventing deaths and injuries at work, but the principle that the employer has a duty of care and is responsible for the health safety and welfare of its employees whilst at work.

The Tory party have buried within their policies of supporting business in deference to employees rights, the fact that they intend to introduce a free-for-all health and safety culture into the UK if elected later this year. Their proposals mirror the US approach to health and safety regulation which is far less able to protect workers from deaths and injury at work.

Unionsafety has covered these issues in depth, reporting on the TUC, the CWU and other Trade Union defense of this basic human right as enshrined in UK law.

The Government owes a duty of care to the workers of UK PLC and as such should be defending and promoting the current health and safety legislation and framework and alerting the public to the need to continue and strengthen it and educating them as to the serious implications of weakening existing legislation.

The editor of Unionsafety, Chris Ingram, has submitted today 17th March, a petition to the Government via the No 10 E-Petitions website which reads:

"We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to Alert the public to the dangers of allowing business to self regulate health and safety at work and abolish existing H&S legislation.

The Tory party have committed themselves to de-regulating health and safety and allow business to refuse access to HSE inspectors, introduce self regulation and abolish current H&S legislation considered by business to be a burden. This approach introduces the US system of self regulation which increases deaths and serious injury of people at work, weakening workers rights to a safe and healthy working environment. It compromises the aims of UK H&S legislation in protecting workers from injury and death at work, making employers responsible for the safety and welfare of their employees. The Government should embark on a media campaign to defend current health & safety legislation educating the public to the disastrous situation that self regulation of health and safety by employers would create. This is rather like making it lawful for criminals to reject any investigations from the police and instead regulate themselves and decide upon their own guilt in relation to the criminal law!"

Whether or not it is accepted by the staff at No 10 and allowed into the Government's E-Petitions Website or not is yet to be decided, but Chris Ingram urges all those concerned with health and safety to ensure this issue is debated during and prior to any election campaign.

Chris told Unionsafety: " The single biggest issue which effects every man woman and child in this country irrespective of class, gender, disability, religion, political allegiance, or employment status; is Health and Safety legislation and the duty of care the employer has to their workforce.

Whilst the Tories and UK business, from multi-nationals down to SMEs, instinctively put profit before the rights of their employees, there will always be the need for health and safety legislation in it's current form."

He explained further;

"The electorate needs to understand that this year's election not only may introduce an extreme government of austerity reminiscent of the 18 years of misery caused by the Thatcher governments of the '80s and '90s, but that it also threatens the health, safety and welfare of all UK workers as they go about their daily working lives.

As the strive for profits and the targeting and abolition of any health and safety legislation considered to be a burden by business, and the introduction of health and safety self regulation is driven by a future Tory Government; the statistics of death and injury at work in the UK will increase dramatically.

It is incumbent upon us all to ensure that the the tragedy forced upon UK industry by Tory plans for a health and safety free-for-all does not come about and inevitably this means getting the message across at every opportunity that a Tory Government puts the health safety and welfare of everyone in the UK at serious risk"

Chris believes that one way of doing this is to put pressure on the existing government not to ignore the Tory attacks upon health and safety, but to campaign against them prior to and during the next general election.

"Health and safety is a party political issue whether we like it or not!" Chris said.

If the petition is accepted, it will be available to sign and support within 5 working days.