Clegg Attacks Workplace Health & Safety Inspections Risking Increasing Injuries And Deaths

Despite the majority of business leaders not seeing health & safety regulation as a major burden upon them, the Government's paranoia about, and hatred of, health and safety at work protection continues to drive their motivation to abolish anything that protects workers. This includes not only health & safety at work, but employment protection, welfare, and pay.

This all before the results of the Löfstedt Review into health & safety at work protection is published!

Today (28th October) CWU's CWU National Health, Safety & Environment Officer Dave Joyce issued letter to branches, LTB908/11 in response to the government's latest attack on protecting workers health and safety.

Below is Dave's LTB in full:

---

'In an address to Business Leaders in East London yesterday, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg announced new government proposals to cut red tape ("preventing Regulators from “breathing down the necks” of businesses") which include the government setting a cap on workplace inspections for small companies, limiting them to just two a year', as the Government looks to “liberate” small businesses.

Clegg said that regulators will no longer be able to carry out doorstep checks “whenever they want” and added that the likes of the Health and Safety Executive and Environment Agency would have to
fight for priority between themselves under these proposals.

It's ironic that the announcement of these appalling proposals come in the middle of European Health and Safety Week and that this terrible speech should be made at Shoreditch, East London famous for the East End sweatshops exploiting underpaid workers are turning out clothes for High Street shops making massive profits. Past investigations of small and medium sized businesses in the area found workers paid well below the statutory minimum wage and forced to work in conditions breaching health and safety regulations.

Investigators discovered workers in dangerous conditions producing the latest fashions for the big high street retail brand names. The appalling conditions endured by workers, included freezing temperatures, electrical hazards of live wires protruding from the walls, lethal blocked ventilation systems, fire escapes padlocked shut, and dust and rubbish covering every inch of the work area.

According to experts, clothing factories are particularly vulnerable to flash fires because cotton can spontaneously burst into flames.

This is another example of the government putting the right to make a fast buck before workers health and safety although at least the Deputy Prime Minister acknowledges the dangers of the 'scrap it all' line peddled by the Tory diehards.

Responding to Nick Clegg's speech the TUC issued a Statement, stating that 'Regulation is there to protect us all from businesses that rip us off, trash our environment, and risk our health and safety - or even our lives. However, it is only of use if it is enforced. Enforcement should not be seen as a burden on business, but instead a way of ensuring that good businesses are not undercut by cowboys who disregard the law and cut corners, whether it is on safety,
paying VAT or not polluting our rivers.

Cuts in enforcement will put even more of us at risk of damaged health or injury or death in our workplaces. A brand new survey of small and medium-sized enterprises published by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), shows that employment law and health and safety regulation do not even feature in their list of concerns. It would appear that employer organisations are pursuing a fanatical right wing agenda that does not actually reflect the concerns of their members.'

---

Part of Clegg's speech is available from the LibDem's website. Here he refers again to the government's Red Tape Challenge which has been the major vehicle by which the Government aims to cut employment protection, health & safety workplace protection; to name but a few of the areas deemed unnecessary by the Con-Dem(ned) coalition.

He said:

“On top of limiting new rules, we’re also hacking away at the ones that already exist. Our Red Tape Challenge invites ordinary people to identify overlaps, complexity and to highlight where the benefits are out of synch with the costs. That project has already looked at 400 regulations just in retail and hospitality. Over half – 220 – will be simplified or scrapped."

With specific reference to health & safety at work, he said:

“And there is another, specific, area of work I can unveil this morning. Changing the mindset within central government is one thing. But we make the rules – we don’t enforce them. There are a range of bodies responsible for inspection: HMRC, the Environment Agency, the Health and Safety Executive, to name a few. And they need to undergo this culture change too. They need to understand that their job is to make your life easier, not harder.

“So there will be a major shake up of business inspection - going through the regulators, asking ‘are they still necessary?’; ‘Should they still exist?’; making sure that, yes, they intervene when necessary, they offer advice and support, but otherwise they let you get on with it.

“They will need to respect the Regulators’ Compliance Code, which says regulators must think about and encourage economic growth. And they will have to make sure they aren’t breathing down your necks. Why, for example, should regulators be able to turn up at your door whenever they want and as often as they want? Why can’t we limit the number of inspections to, say, two a year, ensuring these bodies coordinate amongst themselves to stick within that limit?

It is obvious that Clegg seems to be making policy up as he speaks!

Many observers will see the clear connection between bringing in an american style of health and safety regime with that of the move to privatise the NHS, allowing US health companies into the UK. Further, the attacks on employment protection also mirrors the situation in the USA with regard to workers employment rights which are the worst in the western world.

Bearing in mind the fact that the UK has the least favourable employment laws in the whole of the European union, many would be forgiven for thinking that this is just one more step to creating a United Kingdom of America!

Source: CWU / LibDem website

Designed, Hosted and Maintained by Union Safety Services