Government ignores calls for duties on directors

The Corporate Liability and Corporate Homicide Bill received its second reading in the House of Commons on 10 October, but unions and safety campaigners are still urging the government to introduce health and safety duties on directors alongside stiffer penalties for companies.

"Workers will ask us if this is the bill they have been waiting nine years from a Labour government for to protect them from negligent bosses," said Tony Woodley, general secretary of the T&G general union. "The honest answer, at present, is no. It hands negligent directors a 'get out of jail free' card and will not deliver justice or safer workplaces."

He added that Labour MPs and the government should listen to their party conference's overwhelming vote in favour of directors' health and safety duties.

The government estimates that the draft bill (without directors' duties) will lead to no more than five extra prosecutions a year. In the past decade, only 11 company directors have been convicted of manslaughter following a work-related death.

"Until directors of large companies face imprisonment for their negligence or recklessness, workers will not be any safer than they are now," said Hilda Palmer from the Hazards campaign. "The government must not collude with the business world in seeing workplace deaths as acceptable collateral damage. The current bill is a betrayal of workers and their families, but good for business and a cause for much corporate man's laughter."