Stronger health and safety laws and workers’ rights needed

Safety regulators have been so stripped back that workers are now more likely to win the lottery than have a safety inspection at their workplace, TUC health and safety policy officer Shelly Asquith told union reps and safety campaigners at the recent annual Hazards Conference.

Marking the 50th anniversary of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, Unite general union national health and safety officer Rob Miguel called for stronger health and safety laws and workers’ rights — including the right for safety reps to stop the job where work is dangerous, and for roving safety reps to cover workers in non-unionised workplaces.

He said the Act had improved safety, but not health, and highlighted the Unite Minds campaign.

This calls for new law around workplace stress and psychosocial risk to set out clearly duties to conduct specific risk assessments and the steps taken to control the risks.

This year’s conference, the largest grassroots gathering of health and safety activists where trade unionists “remember the dead, but fight for the living”, included a focus on how to respond to the health and safety impacts of climate change.

FBU firefighters’ union national health and safety officer Riccardo La Torres explained how firefighters and other workers are on the frontline of the climate emergency. And he called for the repeal all anti-trade union laws as a key part of the struggle.