Tag Archives: HSE

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Deadly failures have placed millions of workers at unnecessary coronavirus exposure risk

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Deadly failures have placed millions of workers at unnecessary coronavirus exposure risk 
[Hazards Cmapaign, News release, 7 April 2020]

A fatal combination of missed opportunities, ignored warning signs and a failure to stop non-essential work have made the Covid-19 a bigger and more deadly epidemic in the UK, a new analysis prepared for the Hazards Campaign by top public health academic Professor Andrew Watterson of Stirling University  has revealed.  The government’s serial failures are summarised in an infographic prepared by Hazards Magazine.

Calling for an end to non-essential work, Hazards Campaign spokesperson Janet Newsham said:

“For all our sake, stop this madness.”

“For all our sake, stop this madness.  We have workers side-by-side building luxury hotels when almost every hotel in the land is shutdown and in crisis, and building power stations that won’t go on line for years. How can these jobs have been considered ‘essential’?”

She added: “To control the spread of this virus we need a Government to make rational decisions and the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to enforce safety or stop the work.   

“We are weeks into the pandemic and frontline staff are dying from a negligent Government who are failing to provide basic PPE”

“We are weeks into the pandemic and frontline staff are dying from a negligent Government who are failing to provide basic PPE never mind a standard of PPE that would keep all health and care workers and all essential workers safe.   

“We need a precautionary approach to this new risk and one that provides workers with the best chance of avoiding being infected by it.  It needs to be a robust approach using the best possible research and international evidence available. 

“Continually over the last few weeks, Government officials, have said that testing is coming.  And weeks before, international experts declared that the only way to win the battle against the virus spread was to test and track.  Only this will save the lives of both the front-line workers and the rest of society.  We have to attack the spread of the virus and test, track and quarantine, is the only way proven way to achieve this.  There shouldn’t need to be a debate about who is going to receive treatment or not, we should have in place a health care system alongside a strategy that protects our most vulnerable.   

“The Hazards Campaign calls on the HSE to step up and enforce the legal duty on employers to ensure workers health and safety.”

“The Hazards Campaign calls on the HSE to step up and enforce the legal duty on employers to ensure workers health and safety.  All workers including vulnerable zero hours, the bogus self- employed need reassurance and access to information and support in the workplace.  This means they need a health and safety enforcer to listen to their concerns, raise their issues and challenge negligent employers.  We need them to close down employers who are putting people’s lives at risk. 

“Everyone needs to stand together in the fight to protect workers”

“Everyone needs to stand together in the fight to protect workers, not simply because it’s the right thing to do but because it affects us all. Workers health is public health.  When companies subject workers to dangerous conditions and cheat them out of wages, it’s taxpayers who foot the bill.  The worst offenders will only change their behaviour when the cost of failing to protect workers outweighs the benefits. If we truly want to show our essential workers how much we appreciate their contributions, we need to do more than just applaud them. We must have the courage to stand and support them, using every resource we have. It will be for the good of public health too.

“We echo the statement put out by the STUC condemning the UKs Government approach on social distancing and welcoming the new Scottish Government guidance.  All risks in the workplace must be controlled and the very least employers should do to protect all workers is to provide the highest level of PPE available in these circumstances. (http://www.stuc.org.uk/media-centre/news/1432/scottish-government-guidance-on-social-distancing).

“We support the Statement by the Society of Occupational Medicine!  (https://www.som.org.uk/work-related-fatalities-due-covid-19-exposure-not-given) that the UK should have aimed for a target of zero work-related fatalities in this pandemic within the NHS, essential services and UK business.  Finally, there has been a failure by the HSE to enforce Health and Safety Law and ensure workers are protected from all the risks in the workplace.  This must change!”

A Hazards Campaign meeting yesterday agreed the following statement .

Links

COVID 19 in the UK and occupational health and safety – predictable but not inevitable failures: what can we do now? [updated]

INFOGRAPHIC COVID-19: The coronavirus lessons the UK government chose to ignore

STUC welcomes Scottish Government Guidance on social distancing and condemns UK Government’s approach

Work related fatalities due to COVID-19 exposure is not a given

Further information

Janet Newsham
Chair of Hazards Campaign
Tel: 07734 317 158
Email: janet@gmhazards.org.uk

Blog, media

Covid-19: Hazards Campaign – Request for action from HSE

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Letter to the HSE

Martin Temple Chair of HSE Board and Sarah Albon CEO
Health and Safety Executive
Redgrave Court
Merton Road
Bootle
Merseyside
L20 7HS
30 March 2020

Dear Martin Temple, Sarah Albon,

We are weeks into the COVID19 pandemic and reports continue to arrive in our inbox of workers being exposed to unnecessary risks. This includes being left without any protection or controls of exposure to this dangerous virus. The messages from the Government have been confused at best and ignorant of the reality of working practices to the point of negligence to individual workers:

  • Stay at home
    • Only go outside for food, health reasons or work (but only if you cannot work from home)
    • If you go out, stay 2 metres (6ft) away from other people at all times
    • Wash your hands as soon as you get home
    • Do not meet others, even friends or family.
    • You can spread the virus even if you don’t have symptoms.
    https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus
  • When am I allowed to leave the house?
    o You should only leave the house for very limited purposes:
    o shopping for basic necessities, for example food and medicine, which must be as infrequent as possible
    o one form of exercise a day, for example a run, walk, or cycle – alone or with members of your household
    o any medical need, including to donate blood, avoid or escape risk of injury or harm, or to provide care or to help a vulnerable person
    o travelling for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home• Should I stay at home or go to work?
    o You may travel for work purposes, but only where you cannot work from home.
    o Certain jobs require people to travel to their place of work – for instance if they operate machinery, work in construction or manufacturing, or are delivering front line services such as train and bus drivers.
    o Employers and employees should discuss their working arrangements, and employers should take every possible step to facilitate their employees working from home, including providing suitable IT and equipment to enable remote working.• I’m not a critical worker and I can’t work from home. What should I do?
    o If you cannot work from home then you can still travel to work. This is consistent with the Chief Medical Officer’s advice.
    o Critical workers are those who can still take their children to school or childcare. This critical worker definition does not affect whether or not you can travel to work – if you are not a critical worker, you may still travel to work provided you cannot work from home.
    o Anyone who has symptoms or is in a household where someone has symptoms should not go to work and should self-isolate.

    • How can I find out if my work is essential or not?
    o The government is not saying only people doing “essential” work can go to work. Anyone who cannot work from home can still go to work.
    o Separately, there is a list of critical workers who can still take their children to school or childcare. Provision has been prioritised for these workers.
    o Every worker – whether critical or not – should work from home if they can but may otherwise travel to work.
    o We have also asked certain businesses where people gather, such as pubs and most shops, to close. Separate guidance has been published on this.

    • Can I see my friends?
    o We must all stay away from each other to stop spreading the virus, and that means you should not be meeting friends unless you live in the same household.
    o Instead, you could keep in touch with your friends using phone or video calls.

    • My boss is forcing me to go to work but I’m scared of coronavirus. What should I do?
    o Employers must make all efforts to help people to work from home where possible, as this will help limit the spread of the virus by reducing the amount of contact between people.
    o In some circumstances this may be impossible – this would apply to those working for a business or organisation that we have not asked to close and requires them to travel and be at work, such as train or bus drivers, construction workers, restaurant workers handling deliveries or those on the frontline like NHS workers.
    o For these workers who need to be at work, do not have symptoms or live with anyone who has symptoms, and are not vulnerable people, we have outlined clear guidance for employers to help protect workers.

    • I can’t go to work because I need to look after my child, but my boss is threatening to sack me if I don’t. What should I do?
    o We would urge employers to take socially responsible decisions and listen to the concerns of their workforce – particularly when they have childcare responsibilities.
    o Employers and employees should come to an agreement about these arrangements.
    o If individuals need advice they should approach ACAS where they can get impartial advice about in-work disputes.

    • What will happen to me if I break the rules?
    o We appreciate all the effort people are putting into containing the spread of coronavirus which will help protect our NHS and save lives.
    o However, if you leave your home or gather in public for any reason other than those specified, the police may:
    o instruct you to go home, leave an area or disperse
    o instruct you to take steps to stop your children breaking these rules if they have already done so
    o take you home – or arrest you – if you do not follow their instructions or where they deem it necessary
    o issue a fine (fixed penalty notice) of £60, which will be lowered to £30 if paid within 14 days.
    o issue a fine (fixed penalty notice) of £120 for second time offenders, doubling on each further repeat offence
    o Individuals who do not pay their fine could be taken to court, with magistrates able to impose unlimited fines.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do/coronavirus-outbreak-faqs-what-you-can-and-cant-do

     

  • Employers who have people in their offices or onsite should ensure that employees are able to follow Public Health England guidelines including, where possible, maintaining a 2 metre distance from others, and washing their hands with soap and water often, for at least 20 seconds (or using hand sanitiser gel if soap and water is not available).
    https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close-guidance

But it is impossible to keep safe distance apart in some workplaces and on some jobs. An example of this are the thousands of construction workers on non-essential projects who are still working. Reducing the spread of Covid -19 is not just about social/physical distancing but about touch. Most work which cannot be done at home – 2/3 of workers are unable to work at home – in manufacturing, construction and warehousing for example, involves a lot of touching and handling of materials. In many there will be touch pad security systems, touched by all workers and uncleaned between. In most workplaces complying with the hand washing, cleaning surfaces and materials guidance will be completely impossible and thus breaches the general duty in S2 of Health and Safety at Work Act.

In our opinion those workplaces which are non-essential at this time and cannot guarantee the safety and health of their workers or the public they travel amongst on their way to and from work, or the families they go home to , and should be suspending operations, if the spread of the virus is to be slowed down. This is the only social distancing that will work. The law now potentially allows workers travelling to non-essential work to be stopped and fined, but does not seem to allow unsafe non-essential workplaces to be closed.

The Government has laid out which agencies who will monitor and enforce the new regulations which support their Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) Regulations 2020 and further advice has been issued:

5. Compliance
Everyone is instructed to comply with the rules issued by the government in relation to coronavirus, in order to protect both themselves and others.

As of 1pm on 26 March 2020 new Regulations extending the restrictions are now enforceable by law in England due to the threat to public health. These supersede Regulations that came into force at 2pm on 21 March 2020. They are enforceable in Wales from 4pm on 26 March 2020 and Scotland from 7.15pm on 26 March 2020.

Where an owner, proprietor or manager carrying out a business (or a person responsible for other premises) contravenes the Regulations, that person commits an offence.

In England, Environmental Health and Trading Standards officers will monitor compliance with these regulations, with police support provided if appropriate. Businesses and venues that breach them will be subject to prohibition notices, and fixed penalties. With the support of the police, prohibition notices can be used to require compliance with the Regulations including requiring that an activity ceases.

If prohibition notices are not followed, or fixed penalty notice not paid, you may also be taken to court with magistrates able to impose potentially unlimited fines.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close/further-businesses-and-premises-to-close-guidance

Although this says Environmental Health, Trading Standards and Police will monitor compliance with these regulations this only applies to those workplaces specifically closed down by government regulations. It does not apply to construction, manufacturing and other non-essential work not listed. But this does not negate the responsibility of the HSE and LA Health and Safety Inspectors to continue to regulate and enforce Health and Safety Regulations in all workplaces both essential and non-essential workplaces. And in this case it will be around PPE – provision, appropriateness and quantity -, managing risks and introducing safe systems of work and control measures.

If the HSE and LA health and safety officers do not act, employers will continue to take advantage and place their workers at risk. Trade Unions are continuing to highlight many examples of bad employment practices and negligent employers and through collective action have forced employers to improve their practices, but we still need the enforcement bodies to act as well.
Workers are justifiably feeling abandoned, anxious and their physical and mental health is deteriorating leaving them more likely to be at risk from contracting the virus.

Please will you tell us what action the HSE is taking to protect workers in this unprecedented situation, so that we can pass this on to the thousands of workers currently feeling abandoned and unnecessarily exposed to life threatening risks. We specifically want to know what action the HSE is taking to:

1. Remind all employers in essential and non-essential workplaces that workers health and safety is paramount at all times, that normal health and safety duties and regulations apply and that #Covid19 means extra risks must be assessed and prevented in usual way – by elimination, collective control and appropriate and sufficient PPE as last resort.

2. Issue strong warnings to employers to review all Risk Assessments for the new Covid 19 risk and to introduce safe systems of work to protect workers.

3. Advise employers that if suitable and sufficient Risk Assessments show the risk of exposure to COVID19 cannot be reasonable prevented they must stop work.

4. Provide workers with information about risks to their health and what their employers should be doing. Closure of HSE Infoline in2011 has left workers without a lifeline and employers without advice. Surely at this time with inspectors working from home, the HSE helpline could be reintroduced to support these workers?

5. Respond to the ‘Report a Concern’ online form by next day with enforcement action to support workers health against employers who are breaching health and safety regulations. Will you accept photographic evidence available which is date stamped? This could be used to instruct employers to either improve the situation in workplaces or face Prohibition and Improvement Notices.

6. Enforce strongly the need for appropriate PPE in sufficient quantities to protect the health of all NHS, Care and other health and essential workers who are at greatest risk of exposure to Covid19.

We look forward to your speedy response as we need to advise workers now on what HSE is doing to protect them and by extension all of society.

Yours sincerely,

Janet Newsham
On behalf of the Hazards Campaign
Chair of Hazards Campaign / Coordinator of GMHC

c/o GMHC
Windrush Millennium Centre,
70 Alexandra Rd,
Manchester M16 7WD
janet@gmhazards.org.uk
Tel: 07734 317158

Action, Blog

Hazards Campaign calls for urgent cut to killer silica dust limit

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The national Hazards Campaign is urging the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) to halve the workplace exposure limit for silica dust, a move it says will save 4,000 lives a year.

The campaign’s call came in response to a new ‘Choked’ report from Hazards magazine. This presents evidence for cutting the current legal limit of 0.1 mg/m3 for respirable crystalline silica to no more than 0.05 mg/m3, a move the report says would dramatically reduce the incidence of the lung scarring occupational disease silicosis, lung cancer, autoimmune diseases and other silica-related conditions.

Hazards reviewed the international scientific literature and internal HSE documents to calculate the annual excess silica-related death toll resulting from HSE’s repeat refusal to switch to and enforce the tighter standard, instead sticking with a level it admits comes with “significant risks”.

The report reveals that HSE’s own internal reports estimate the silicosis risk for workers is six times higher at the current HSE limit of 0.1 mg/m3, calculated at 30 cases per 100 workers exposed compared to just five per 100 at the tighter 0.05 mg/m3 standard. The United States and a number of other jurisdictions already work to the safer standard.

The Hazards Campaign is asking supporters to send an online postcard to Sarah Albon, the new chief executive of the HSE. Over 600,000 workers in the UK are regularly exposed to silica at work which is created when cutting, grinding drilling or polishing, natural substances such as rocks and sand and is a major constituent in bricks, tiles and concrete and materials. At least one-in-five workers in these jobs – and in some like stonemasonry and construction, possibly half – are exposed at or above the current deadly UK limit.

Choked! The evidence for introducing a lifesaving new silica dust exposure limit, Hazards, Number 147, September 2019.
ACTION: Send an e-postcard to HSE demanding it introduce a more protective silica standard no higher than 0.05mg/m³ and with a phased move to 0.025mg/m³.

Blog, media

A manifesto for a health and safety system fit for workers: Decent jobs and decent lives

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NEWS RELEASE 9th January 2019 for immediate use

Hazards Campaign launches Manifesto for a health and safety system fit for workers: Decent jobs and decent lives

The Hazards Campaign believes the British health and safety system is broken. Workers are harmed daily just for going to work to earn a living, and many now have no realistic prospect of enforcement of their basic human right to go to work and come home alive and well.

“Work contributes to a huge amount of public ill-health, to health inequality, lower life expectancy, less years of healthy life kills over 50,000 people in the UK each year, makes millions ill, injures over half a million and the quality of jobs contributes to poverty and ill-health.  But all of this is preventable with the right framework of strong laws, strict enforcement and support for active worker and union participation will have massive payback for workers, employers and whole economy.  The current political situation has given us an opportunity to place health and safety firmly back on the political agenda,” says the campaign’s Janet Newsham.  “An opportunity to address our concerns, to discuss what we want from regulation, enforcement, to support trade union safety reps and how workers should be treated with more dignity and be able to organise and respond collectively.”

“We are launching our Manifesto for health and safety fit for workers, decent jobs and decent lives for all with three clear demands on the current and future governments. To ensure decent jobs and lives for all, and to fix the broken health and safety system, government must by do three key things:

  1. End deregulation and restore regulation and enforcement as a social good
  2. Develop a health and safety system based on prevention, precaution and participation of strong active unions.
  3. Provide real, enforceable employment and safety rights to ensure good health and safety in low paid and precarious work by enforcement agencies working together.

“The Manifesto is a clear guide to action that must be taken to protect all workers by restoring good regulation and enforcement, revamping the independence, funding and action of the HSE and Local Authority enforcement agencies, empowering trade unions and safety reps who have the biggest impact on making work safer and healthier, and ensuring links between health and safety and employment inspections to deal with the exploitation of workers in the low paid, precarious economy.

“The Manifesto sets out in detail what must be done to achieve this.  After Grenfell no-one can be in any doubt as to the deadly dangers of deregulation and it must be halted and reversed.  Developing a health and safety system based on prevention, precaution and participation of strong active unions includes the organising demands of  the updated Hazards Campaign charter and extends it. The link between precarious low paid work and poor health and safety must be acknowledged as a huge risk for workers’ lives and health must be addressed through enforcement of health and safety and employment issues.”

“We call for increased enforcement with more resources, and more, more accessible inspectors, employment rights with collective representation from day one on the job, and an end to zero hours, precarious work. An end to all the lying, dishonest, unevidenced rhetoric  used to justify the deregulation of health and safety.

“We want the purpose and mission of HSE to be one sole aim – to prevent injury, ill-health and death caused by work, no constraints of having to consider business interests, and to use its teeth to enforce that strictly and be effective and active in the new precarious 21st Century workplace.  The HSE must be made a real champion of workers’ lives and health and the whole health and safety system a proactive, preventive, precautionary, workers’ participatory project with ambitious aims to make work safer and healthier.”

“We want workers to be given much greater control over the circumstances under which they work and rights from day one. Give workers and union safety reps more power to take action in the workplace by abolishing all anti-trade union legislation, enforcing the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations and extending and enhancing them with, for example,  the right to stop the job.”

Janet added “We want the current government to take heed of where they have gone wrong, how deadly deregulation must end now, and to use our Manifesto to fix the broken system.  If they won’t  do this,  they must explain why.  We want other political parties to adopt the Manifesto and set out their plans to make this happen ready for the next General Election.  We want trade unions to adopt it, support it and campaign with us to make a health and safety system fit for all workers, for decent jobs and decent lives for all”

For more information contact  Janet Newsham and Hilda Palmer, Hazards Campaign Secretariat c/o Greater Manchester Hazards Centre  0161 636 7557/8 info@hazardscampaign.org.uk

The Hazards Campaign, established in 1987, is a network of worker oriented health and safety centres, individual activists &  groups working with workers, trade union safety reps, families & communities on all aspects of work-related safety & ill-health. It includes the Scottish Hazards Campaign, Greater Manchester & London Hazards Centres, the Asbestos Victims Support Groups, Construction Safety Campaign, Families Against Corporate Killers, trade unions safety reps and specialists and award-winning Hazards Magazine.  The Hazards Campaign brought International Workers Memorial Day to the UK in the 1990s, and runs the annual Hazards Conference , attracting  350 – 400 safety reps. The 9th Hazards Conference, Hazards  2018,  was held 27-29th July at Keele University with 350 union safety reps and activists participating #Haz2018

CONTACT Hazards Campaign Secretariat c/o GMHC,  Windrush Millennium Centre, 70 Alexandra Road, Manchester     M16 7WD  email:    Tel: 0161 636 7557