The Hazards Campaign

International Workers Memorial Day
Sunday 28th April 2013
‘Remember the Dead: Fight for the Living’
Tell the government
“STOP IT: YOU’RE KILLING US!”

This is our day to tell our stories: to explain that poor or non-existent health and safety means workers are injured, killed and made ill, but this isn’t due to freak, unavoidable accidents or rare diseases but because employers didn’t care enough to obey the law and governments didn’t make them.. We utterly reject this government’s destruction of health and safety regulation and enforcement based on the lie that it is a ‘burden on business’, when the facts show the real burden of lack of health and safety is borne by us- the individuals hurt and their families, and on the public purse, not on business!

In 2013, after nearly 3 years of economic recession and specific government attacks on health and safety, scrapping of regulations and slashing of enforcement, workers and the public are at much greater risk of being injured, killed or made ill than ever before. But because of cuts in scrutiny, inspection, inspectors and reporting requirements, we are even less likely to hear about it in the press/media.

Our health and our safety is under attack like never before. All that we have now, that was hard won by the collective action of generations of workers and trade unions over the last 50 to 100 years, is under threat, and standards are being driven backwards. We are in a fight for our lives – deaths at work and ill-health are already rising - and we must defend health and safety for our own sake and that of our children and grandchildren.

The Hazards Campaign calls on everyone to mark International Workers Memorial Day by demanding more protection from work related harm, and rejecting the lie that good health and safety standards are a burden on business, when the reality is that bad health and safety standards are a massive and unacceptable burden on us and on the public purse!
We want Action not Reaction –
Proactive, preventative action that stops workers being killed injured or made ill,
not mopping up after the harm is done.

As 28th April is a Sunday this year check as some events will also take places on Friday and Saturday. We want to encourage workers to bring their families to events in our towns and cities, making the case that workers health and safety affects everyone, families and communities and that it affects public health and safety too as shown by the Legionnaire’s disease outbreaks last year after proactive inspections of cooling towers were cut. Health and Safety isn’t a joke, but is about everyone’s lives and health. Lobby your MP, and take part in the closest event with union banners, placards and wreaths.

In 2012 TUC called on UK health and safety representatives, trades councils and safety to make 28 April a National Day of Action to defend health and safety from the attacks on regulation, enforcement, cuts and refusal to tackle the massive toll that health and safety breaches take on workers.

The national union body noted: “Our health and our safety is under attack like never before and we must defend it, for our sake and that of future generations.”

TUC assembled a top class package of resources to help organise, publicise and effectively run events. Available on the TUC website, you’ll find a series of briefings giving all the facts and figures you’ll ever need to win an argument for better regulation and enforcement, an infographic spelling this out at-a-glance, guides on dealing with the press and lobbying MPs, a listings of events nationwide.

The Hazards Campaign is encouraged and supported a record number of events nationwide.

It’s not a secret, TELL PEOPLE about it!!
Tell:
your members
your family
your friends
anyone you meet, and
don’t forget your employer

Workers Memorial Day is on the 28th April every year.

This is OUR day, a day when workers and our families and our trade unions, focus on health and safety at work, both in our workplaces, and at events locally, nationally, and worldwide. This year more than ever we need to fight for our lives as the recession caused by a greedy, globalised financial system acting out of control under government deregulated, light touch regulation, has caused global meltdown and threatens to make our health and safety an even lower priority.

DON’T DO NOTHING, TAKE SOME ACTION, GET INVOLVED
Attend one of the local events or organise one yourself. If you cannot attend an event try to do something in your workplace – and at very least put up posters, wear a forget me knot ribbon and hold a one minutes silence at noon and tell everyone about it!

Every year there are thousands of events across the world on WMD attended by millions of people. There are hundreds in the UK.

The point of the Day is two fold:

to Remember the Dead and also to Fight for the Living

Hazards Campaign WMD archive