Health and safety gone mad?

While the Institute of Directors continue their call for further deregulation, the Institute of Employment Rights has put together a briefing on the danger of deregulating health and safety, written by Steve Tombs and David Whyte.

The Institute is working with the Trade Union Coordinating Group to promote a week of action on health and safety issues, from 28th February to 3rd March and the Briefing aims to inform that debate.

As part of the week, the TUCG are holding a lobby of Parliament on 2 March. PCS have helped trade unionists to make an appointment to see their MP here. More information on the week of action is here. Download a copy of IER’s Briefing and take one to give to your MP.

Tombs and Whyte are experts in the field of health and safety and have written a publication for the Institute, Regulatory surrender: death, injury and the non-enforcement of law which is based upon close analysis of government, parliamentary and civil service documents.

The result of their research is a battery of statistics, including the shocking revelation that prosecutions following deaths at work have fallen from 46% to 28% in six years.

As the report notes, legislation backed by credible enforcement, is what makes employers commit to occupational health and safety. Advice, education and compromise will only ever function against a back drop of effective enforcement. Cuts to the HSE and proposals to deregulate still further will reduce inspections, enforcements and prosecutions to a level that the authors argue represents a dereliction of duty and a danger to working people.

We are sure this publication will have wide interest not just to those involved in health and safety but to all those concerned with the accelerated shift towards deregulation, privatisation and the proposed diminution of the role of the state.