Make 2020 a safe year for demolition workers
General union Unite is demanding action from the demolition industry and enforcement agencies to ensure 2020 is a safe one for demolition workers following a “horrendous” year in 2019.
The union highlighted four deaths at three different sites in Fife, Redcar and Great Yarmouth, as well as the collapse of scaffolding around a derelict shopping centre in Reading, which it says could have been far more serious.
It also pointed to incomplete or unsatisfactory investigations into the collapse of a disused power station at Didcot, where four men died in 2016, and the death of a man in Grosvenor Square in London in 2014. He was killed when a digger fell through a concrete slab during a demolition.
Unite is writing to the HSE to demand incidents are investigated properly and lessons implemented. It is calling on both enforcement agencies and employers to step up their efforts to safeguard demolition workers.
Unite national officer Jerry Swain called for an inquiry into the scaffold collapse. This must include examining whether the work had been subcontracted, the competence of the company carrying out the work, the role of the client and whether all the workers on site were correctly employed and had all the appropriate skills and training, he said.