CWU Urges Tougher Penalties In Workplace Homicide Cases
Discussing the H&S legislation needs for 2008, CWU National Health and Safety Officer Dave Joyce argues that "We also need the government to go a step further and introduce new positive legal health and safety duties on directors and senior managers."
“In 2008 the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act will hopefully at last be the wake-up call for all employers, company bosses and organisations and the new law will I hope be a powerful deterrent to those employers failing to meet the proper standards of health and safety and safe working practices when it comes into force on 6th April."
"We do however need a range of tougher penalties and higher fines handed down by the Courts. We know that the government supports this and have done so since 2000. I therefore welcome the fact that the Government’s Sentencing Advisory Panel are consulting on the appropriate penalties for corporate manslaughter and other breaches of health and safety law that result in death. My view is that the current penalties, the level of fines and the level of enforcement activity are inadequate to deal with the widespread health and safety problems in the UK. Current Fine levels in the Britain are too easily shrugged off and contribute to the idea that a workers death can be “bought off” and that life is only worth a small amount of money. Health and Safety Fines are lower than those imposed on companies for regulatory breaches, competition offences and insolvency and that must change."
"In 2006 Royal Mail were convicted of breaching the Health and Safety at Work act when a CWU member died and they were fined £150,000. No directors were charged. Around the same time the Postal Regulator fined Royal Mail nearly £12 Million for minor service standard failures which didn’t harm anyone."
"In August 2007 British Airways were fined £121.5 million for illegally fixing fuel-surcharges on passengers booking long-haul flights provides a stark contrast to the fines handed out by the courts for health and safety offences. The biggest fine ever in the UK for a health and safety offence was the £15 million fine handed out to Transco in 2005 over the Larkhall explosion which killed a family of four in 1999. In England and Wales, the biggest fine was the £7.5 million fine given to Balfour Beatty over the Hatfield rail crash, which also claimed four lives. In the UK, the average fine for health and safety offences in 2003-04 in the crown court, where there are unlimited fines available, stands at just £33,000, while in magistrate's courts, where the maximum fine is £20,000, the average is just £4,000.
The average fine for cases involving death in 2003-04 was a mere £43,000. While price-fixing is a very serious offence, I can't understand how such an offence is more than eight times more serious than killing a family of four, and more than 16 times more serious than a rail crash that claimed four lives"
"I certainly hope that when the new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act comes into force, that this gross disparity between serious health and safety offences and financial offences will disappear. The courts have got to send out the right message from day one of the new Act that killing people is more serious than financial and taxation irregularities offences, competition and regulatory offences and insolvency – if we're to improve the UK’s health and safety record. 241 workers died in 2006/07, but 241 fines of £43,000 is only just over £10 million. Such a great disparity cannot be justified. The punishment needs to fit the crime."
"On the other hand I certainly welcome proposals for a greater range and availability of penalties such as adverse publicity orders and remedial orders but penalties need to bite hard. There's a big need to provide incentives to comply with health and safety regulations as well as rebalance the law in favour of victims and ensure that lessons are learnt and offences not repeated. The level of fines has to be raised significantly if they are to be effective."
"Directors and boards have the key role to play. They set the tone for other managers’ behaviour and influence the whole of the workforce. Around 1,500 Directors are disqualified for periods of 2 - 15 years in the UK every year for various financial irregularities, wrongful trading, taxation offences and insolvency offences and breaching a disqualification order can lead to imprisonment for up to 2 years or a fine or both. I think that the same needs to now apply following convictions for serious health and safety offences in connection with major injury and death and I will be impressing these views on the Government’s Sentencing Advisory Panel during the current consultation which ends in February and welcome the fact that the Health and Safety Minister Lord McKenzie has agreed to remind the courts to use their existing disqualification powers in health and safety cases, something in the past the Courts have rarely done."
"We also need the government to go a step further and introduce new positive legal health and safety duties on directors and senior managers. When you consider that around 50 people are jailed for animal cruelty offences each year in the UK it's ridiculous that bosses who cause workers to be killed and seriously injured can go Scott-free even if their company is found guilty. The good news is that the Health and Safety Minister Lord McKenzie said recently at the CCA Conference and during a visit to CWU HQ that the issue of new legal health and safety duties for directors is still on the table and if the bosses don’t deliver better behaviours and good practice in line with the newly published HSE/Institute of Directors guidance, then the government will look again at the case for further legislative change."
"In 2008 employers need to uphold safety measures and engage with Union Safety Representatives, in consultation and partnership to tackle the problems faced by the workforce and the government needs to come off the fence and give Safety Reps the legal right to involvement in Risk Assessments and introduce a new legal duty on employers to respond to Safety Representatives in good time. It's no good just saying Safety Reps do a fantastic job - they need to be supported with new rights and with the HSE enforcing the Safety Reps and Safety Committees Regulations."
"Enforcement action must target those responsible for management failures and provide protection for victims. However, strong enforcement activity is the most effective way of ensuring compliance with health and safety law. I've also called on the Health and Safety Minister to ensure that the HSE continues to have sufficient resources to maintain Inspector numbers to Police health and safety laws and to start investigating ‘at work’ road traffic deaths and serious injuries which have reached epidemic levels".
