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UK 30th in H&S League table

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The UK's record on H&S is now a shameful 30th in the World league table and would be even lower if we didn't export dirty jobs like e-waste recycling and shipbreaking abroad.

 

The last 10 years has seen in the words of criminal experts a "collapse of enforcement", worse still the Tories want to allow firms to opt out of H&S and self regulate.

 

http://www.hazards.org/deadlybusiness/thestate.htm

 

The loser from all this is not just workers but society as we will all end up footing the bill for the accidents at work that maim and make people unemployable and economically inactive.

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Of course the Tories are against Health and Safety regulations. For all their bluster about "Labour being the liberal elite" and "architect of the nanny state", Cameron and his buddies want to slash H&S regualtions knowing full well that it will win them a few votes with Sun readers, and in the full knowledge that it will never be their kids risking life and limb in dangerous jobs.

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Is it a coincidence that these none stories pop up whenever there are stories like Gordon’s exposed lies to the Charcot enquiry in the papers?

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Is it a coincidence that these none stories pop up whenever there are stories like Gordon’s exposed lies to the Charcot enquiry in the papers?

 

The story has been in the media for some time??

 

The reason I put the thread up was because I was going to make the point on Jabbers thread but then I thought it might spoil his thread by taking it off at a tangent.

 

Start a thread about Charcot if you want, no one is stopping you this one is about the 50,000 people that die every year in the UK from industrial diseases and workplace accidents, how we can improve H&S for our workers, and how we could make things worse.

 

Why do you feel obliged to come on to this thread with an attempt to distract it? do you, like the Tories, think workers health and safety is not important and that we can comfortably slide further down the international table but are afraid to say so directly?

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Is it a coincidence that these none stories pop up whenever there are stories like Gordon’s exposed lies to the Charcot enquiry in the papers?

 

All those people killed and maimed whilst at work as mentioned by the previous contributer is a non story is it?

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The UK's record on H&S is now a shameful 30th in the World league table and would be even lower if we didn't export dirty jobs like e-waste recycling and shipbreaking abroad.

 

The last 10 years has seen in the words of criminal experts a "collapse of enforcement", worse still the Tories want to allow firms to opt out of H&S and self regulate.

http://www.hazards.org/deadlybusiness/thestate.htm

 

The loser from all this is not just workers but society as we will all end up footing the bill for the accidents at work that maim and make people unemployable and economically inactive.

 

Who are they, public sector workers? :hihi:

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What is this "Charcot Inquiry" that "Wildcat" and "a.n.other" above are talking about? :hihi:

 

Good to see the Elf'nSafety Brigade posting from the Left Wing of the NuLabour Political Bandwagon don't even know it's "The Chilcott Enquiry"! :hihi:

 

"Elf'nSafety" Regulations have resulted in people dying from the idiocy of the rules which have to be legally followed by the Emergency Services not daring to breach the draconian H&S Regulations to save lives ........

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The UK's record on H&S is now a shameful 30th in the World league table and would be even lower if we didn't export dirty jobs like e-waste recycling and shipbreaking abroad.

 

The last 10 years has seen in the words of criminal experts a "collapse of enforcement", worse still the Tories want to allow firms to opt out of H&S and self regulate.

 

http://www.hazards.org/deadlybusiness/thestate.htm

 

The loser from all this is not just workers but society as we will all end up footing the bill for the accidents at work that maim and make people unemployable and economically inactive.

 

Isn't it a fact that the 10 years of "collapse of enforcement" you refer to are 10 years under your darling Labour misGovernment, and everything else is your personal speculation.

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Isn't it a fact that the 10 years of "collapse of enforcement" you refer to are 10 years under your darling Labour misGovernment,
That is what I said, yes.

 

and everything else is your personal speculation.

 

everything else is referenced in the article.

 

In terms of Tory Policy these are their proposals:

 

A Tory policy document, ‘Regulation in the post-bureaucratic age’, [10] a Green Paper announced by shadow business secretary Ken Clarke at the party’s October 2009 conference, says “the powers of government inspectors will be drastically curbed” with firms allowed to arrange “their own, externally audited inspections instead.” Its aim of “taming regulators” would include “replacing regulator-run public teams of inspectors with a model closer to financial controls and audits.”

 

But Ken Clarke may not be content with just hobbling HSE. He may do away with it entirely. In his 6 October 2009 Tory party conference speech [9], he said: “We will give each regulator and quango a ‘sunset clause’. That means they will automatically cease to exist after a set period unless they can prove their continuing usefulness.” The policy paper says during the first turn of a Conservative government “all regulators will be re-assessed and their duties reviewed.”

 

Even while HSE survives, its role under the Conservatives would be dramatically diminished. The policy paper notes: “Well run companies would employ professionally qualified experts in, for example health and safety or food safety, in the same way as they use accountants for a financial function to ensure that the correct internal processes are in place, and that reported results are reliable.”

 

Jump through a couple of hoops and the miniscule chance of an HSE inspection or any official scrutiny – and with it, any real prospect of a firm being brought to account for criminal breaches of health and safety law – will disappear entirely. Instead firms could apply for “earned autonomy” the policy paper says. It adds: “Any organisation which has undertaken a co-regulation review and has published an independently audited statement that it satisfies the required regulatory outcomes, would be allowed to refuse entry to official inspectors in anything other than an emergency.” Commenting on the Tory’s leader’s speech, TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “The idea that employers are being over-zealous in their application of health and safety regulation is simply not true. The reality is exactly the opposite - last year 246,000 people were injured at work. Neither does the UK have an excess of regulation - there were more than twice as many health and safety regulations and laws 35 years ago than there are now.”

 

Not good policies for any worker.

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That is what I said, yes.

 

 

 

everything else is referenced in the article.

 

In terms of Tory Policy these are their proposals:

 

 

 

Not good policies for any worker.

 

It is your speculation that a different system would not be better than one you openly admit is failing.

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It is your speculation that a different system would not be better than one you openly admit is failing.

 

Can you think of any examples where a lack of enforcement has been improved by handing over authority for the enforcement to the offending companies? When has self regulation ever worked?

 

In the US for example they have learnt their lessons through avoidable fatalities:

 

The Tory move comes as even the US, the birthplace and poster boy for voluntary alternatives to health and safety enforcement, accelerates a sharp reversal of the policy because it has been proven to be a deadly diversion.

 

The US policy switch, placing a renewed emphasis on enforcement, is evidence driven. A 4 January 2010 news release from the US government’s Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA), for example, announced mining deaths in the US fell to an all-time low in 2009. Stronger enforcement and the tougher mine safety rules passed in 2006 were given as key reasons why [11].

 

MSHA’s Joseph A Main said a major factor responsible was better enforcement of the Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977 and continued implementation of the MINER Act, introduced in 2006 after a series of mine disasters. The law’s introduction followed a high profile scandal about the role in the deaths of a lack of enforcement of mine safety and the inadequacy of penalties for even egregious safety offences in US mines.

 

The Tories are playing with workers lives.

 

Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) spokesperson Hilda Palmer was scathing. She said: “Cameron is completely bankrupt and his comments are absolute populist nonsense.” She added: “As far as FACK is concerned he obviously has no understanding at all of the issue. All the models the Tories are proposing come from America where they have been shown to have failed.”

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