The Hazards Campaign
is a network of
resource centres and campaigners
on health and safety at work
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The Hazards Campaign
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Press Release. Embargo 0.01 8 November 2005 ‘A job to die for?’(1) - Meeting protest challenges official work deaths complacency Tuesday 8th November, 9am outside The Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, London (2) The UK’s official workplace health and safety strategy is putting business interests before workers’ lives, campaigners are warning. The Hazards Campaign says the Health and Safety Commission’s new health and safety strategy favours deregulation, hands-off enforcement and business-friendly voluntary approaches while an epidemic of work-related ill-health affects millions and goes unchecked. Campaigners are raising their concerns at a 9am protest outside a Health and Safety Commission open meeting in London on 8 November. Hazards Campaign spokesperson Hilda Palmer says: ‘The UK has one of the most unregulated economies in the industrial world and UK workers suffer enormous ill-health and die for it. We expect the HSC to stand up for workers’ health, not abandon them to even more business friendly initiatives which have failed to make a difference. Latest figures show 20% of the UK biggest killers are caused by work and workers at the bottom end suffer disproportionately. No to deregulation, Yes to strong enforcement coupled with more powers for safety reps and workers to reverse this calamitous effect of work on our health and stop workers dying for their jobs.” Official targets to reduce deaths, injuries and illness caused by work set by the government in 2000 (3) have not been met. No headway has been made on reducing occupational ill-health or work-related lost time in the last 5 years. On top of this, official UK statistics grossly underestimate the work-related contribution to deaths and illness in the UK. According to Hilda Palmer: ‘The top causes of deaths in the UK are the most common work-related health conditions- cancer, chronic respiratory disease and circulatory disease- and the workplace is a substantial contributor to overall mortality from these conditions.’ ‘A job to die for?’(4), a study published this week in the campaign-backed Hazards magazine concludes that official statistics miss tens of thousands of deaths from occupational cancer, lung disease, heart disease and other complaints every year. Based on research on the effects of stressful jobs on heart disease, Hazard magazine estimates that work may contribute to 20,000 deaths from heart disease a year. Up to 6,000 deaths a year from chronic obstructive lung diseases may be related to work. The report says the true situation is likely to be much worse. There are many work-related conditions, accepted in other countries, which are invisible in official UK statistics. These include work-related chemical neurotoxicity, Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, motor neurone disease, autoimmune conditions like rheumatoid arthritis and scleroderma, reproductive disorders and some cancers plus multiple chemical sensitivity and sick building syndrome. According to Hilda Palmer, this has major implications for prevention: “If you don’t count the bodies, the bodies don’t count,” she says. The Hazards Campaign is calling for more resources for safety enforcement and a switch to a safety system that protects those facing the risks at work, not those creating them. It says safety enforcement has dropped off dramatically under HSC’s new strategy. The number of safety prosecutions fell from 960 in 2003/04 to 712 in 2004/5, according to latest HSC statistics. Convictions for safety offences fell from 887 to 673. Tony O'Brien,Secretary of the Construction Safety Campaign said: " If the HSE's current strategy continues then we'll get ten more years of less HSE inspections and fewer prosecutions and more deaths, serious injuries and diseases from work. All new or revised regulations have fewer prescribed duties and are less effective as they are based on risk assessments carried out by employers more concerned with their profits than the risks faced by workers from unsafe workplaces, and are not sufficiently enforced by the HSE. The HSE's newly announced asbestos regulations continue this approach and if allowed to become law will see workers die in increasing numbers from being exposed to asbestos." “It’s time for the HSC to face up to the occupational disease epidemic that is here and now and save workers from illness and death just for doing their jobs,” says Hilda Palmer. Tel 0161 953 4037. Notes 1. Protest organised by Hazards Campaign and Construction Safety Campaign. Hazards Campaign
is a national network established in 1988, consisting of Hazards Centres,
Occupational Health Projects, Trades Unions, health and safety groups,
specific campaigns and individual health and safety reps and activists.
Specific campaign groups include the Construction Safety Campaign, UK
National Work Stress Network, bereaved relatives groups, asbestos support
groups, RSI support groups, pesticide sufferers groups, campaigns against
hazards affecting black and ethnic minority groups and toxic waste groups. 2. The HSC conference for stakeholders 'Ownership, Leadership, Partnership’ to discuss the strategy for workplace health and safety in GB to 2010 and beyond, is on Tuesday 8th November at the Institution of Civil Engineers, One Great George Street, London. The protest starts at 9am outside the event. 3. Revitalising Health and Safety main targets are to :
4. ‘A job to die for?’ November 2005. Full report: www.hazards.org/disease |
The Hazards Campaign,
c/o Greater Manchester Hazards Centre, Windrush Millennium Centre, 70
Alexandra Road, |