Campaigners seek changes as workplace deaths soar

With deaths at work currently at a five-year high, unions have warned that the situation will not improve unless the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) is properly funded and safety reps are given more rights.

New HSE figures show that 241 workers died in work-related incidents over the 12 months from April 2006 — up 11% on the 217 deaths in 2005/ 06, and the highest figure since 2001/02. The increase was particularly stark in the construction industry, but the service sector also saw an increase.

“Each one of these tragic deaths was preventable,” said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. “Employers are not doing enough to make their workplaces safe. Among the worst offenders are those in construction, the waste industry and agriculture, where there are high concentrations of migrant workers.”

Campaign group Families Against Corporate Killing (FACK) points out that the HSE has shed over 1,000 jobs in the past five years. It wants the government to “cease immediately any talk of deregulating health and safety”, and to give adequate funding to enforcement.

FACK spokesperson Hilda Palmer has also called for urgent government action “to increase the accountability of employers, to make directors legally responsible for health and safety, and to give workers more rights and powers to be fully involved”.