THE Tory-led coalition is pushing full steam ahead with its plans to completely smash up the health and safety legislation and leave hundreds of thousands of workers completely unprotected.
This week ministers will announce that thousands of businesses, described as ‘low-risk’, will be exempt from health and safety inspections from April next year.
This is the latest in a long-term war being waged by Cameron and the coalition against the ‘health and safety culture’ along with the hated ‘compensation culture’, both of which are blamed for the collapse of the UK economy.
This position was summed up by Cameron in an article he penned for the London Evening Standard back in January where he said that he would ‘end the health and safety culture’ and along with it the ‘burden on business it creates’.
At the same time, he announced plans to curb the amount of money lawyers can earn from personal injury claims, to deter workers from seeking compensation for work-related injuries, and generally reduce the costs to business of the onerous job of providing a safe working environment where workers are not exposed to risks to their health and very lives.
Reports of the forthcoming announcement about ‘low-risk’ businesses mention, as an example, shops – however the local corner shop is not the only business defined as ‘low-risk.’
Astoundingly, the docks industry has been declared to be a ‘low risk’ business and inspections by the Health and Safety Executive have already been stopped.
The grim figures for the docks tell a different story.
According to the safety magazine ‘Hazards’ the national industry average for deaths caused by accidents is about one fatality a year.
On the docks the death rate last year was several times this national average – close on to one fatality a month.
At Tilbury docks in October last year two dockers were killed in accidents in three days, and since then there have been three further fatal accidents on docks in the UK, while an Essex dock firm has recently been fined £20,000 for criminal safety failings following an accident that resulted in a docker having both legs amputated.
As for shops being havens of safety, this year one national chain of newsagents was fined £25,000 for health and safety offences ranging from possible exposure to deadly asbestos hazards, having dangerous electrical failings and creating an environment where staff and customers were at risk of tripping or falling.
Along with ending health and safety inspections for businesses the coalition are planning to scrap 3,000 safety regulations, a move championed by the business minister, Vince Cable, who declared that businesses need to focus on creating jobs and growth rather than ‘being tied up in unnecessary red tape’ – before going on to claim: ‘we’re determined to put common sense back into areas like health and safety, which will reduce costs and fear of burdensome inspections.’
Nothing, you will note ,about improving the health and safety for working men and women. Cable is only concerned with cutting costs to capitalism and if workers pay the price with their lives then this is a price worth paying as far as he and the government are concerned.
Commenting on this attack on health and safety, RMT leader Bob Crow stated: ‘This isn’t about cutting red tape, it’s about cutting the throat of safety regulations, and the trade unions will mobilise a massive campaign of resistance.’
Crow is absolutely correct, but what is required is not just a massive campaign of resistance but a massive campaign to bring down this government through the organisation of an indefinite general strike and going forward to a workers government that will place the health and safety of workers above all else.
