The True Cost Of Workplace Safety Failings

The Institute of Employment Rights Health & Safety conference held in Liverpool last week saw key speakers discussing the situation with regard to workplace injuries and deaths in the UK.

The HSE's Director of field operations, Dave Ashton responded to the evidence presented by professor Steve Tombs of Liverpool University and Dr David Whyte of Liverpool John Moores University. A debate which saw the HSE facing the criticism that it is in crisis and guilty of not pursuing those breaking health and safety law.

The key speaker was Dame Rita Donaghy who produced the report into deaths and injuries in the construction industry commissioned by the last government. Both presentations and the response from the HSE can be viewed shortly via the IER's website.

Union Safety Reps need to be armed with the latest analysis of the current situation with regard to the state of the nation when it comes to workplace deaths and injuries in order to combat the media and the government's campaign intended to weaken, if not remove many of the current health and safety laws.

Office workers, for example are deemed already by the government to be working in an accident and injury free environment, judging by comments made recently by Lord Young and reported elsewhere on this website. USRs can therefore expect to see major attacks on the likes of DSE Regulations, Manual Handling, and Work Related Stress legislation; to name but a few.

Of paramount importance to this is the current role of the HSE and the likely hood of changes to their practices when it comes to prosecution of health and safety crimes.

Based upon close analysis of government, parliamentary and civil service documents, and using previously unpublished information, the authors chart – and seek to explain – what they describe as a “collapse” in the numbers of HSE inspections and enforcement.

This is perhaps most dramatically illustrated by the rate of prosecutions of deaths falling from 46% to 28% in six years. In the context of the regulatory failures in the Gulf of Mexico and coinciding with Lord Young's health and safety review, this timely book documents how the politics of regulatory surrender has developed.

With Britain in the midst of a fiscal crisis, the book asks where the unfolding crisis in enforcement leaves worker safety.

In the introduction to the book, the authors explain their approach and findings:

Using a combination of published data and data obtained through a series of Freedom of Information requests, this report charts how regulatory enforcement has been repositioned to accommodate neo- liberal, business-friendly values.

In combination, the available data indicates that something rather dramatic took place with regards to
HSE enforcement practices in the past decade. Specifically, it indicates:

* a rapid decline in HSE enforcement action generally is apparent from 2002 / 03, and in particular, the most recent sharp decline in prosecutions begins in 2003 / 04

* a collapse in RIDDOR prosecutions which appears to begin in 2002/03

* some indications that the collapse in prosecutions is replaced to some extent by a rise in enforcement from around 2004/ 05, although enforcement notices remain at a significantly lower level than in the early years of Labour’s first period in office.

The booklet can be ordered direct from the Institute of Employment Rights here

Source: Unionsafety

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