The following details have been supplied by the TUC:
The TUC has said a review of UK health and safety regulation announced this week by David Cameron will undermine the 'already limited' legal protection of UK workers. He said the prime minister was pandering to the businesses that are responsible for hundreds of thousands of workers falling sick each year. The review is to be headed by Lord Young and repackages an ongoing review by the former Tory employment and trade secretary initiated by David Cameron pre-election. The prime minister said: 'The rise of the compensation culture over the last ten years is a real concern, as is the way health and safety rules are sometimes applied. We need a sensible new approach that makes clear these laws are intended to protect people, not overwhelm businesses with red tape.' TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said he was 'surprised the government is addressing the 'compensation culture' again as successive reports show there is no such thing and claims have been falling over the past ten years.' He added: 'This will not be an open and frank review aimed at achieving better regulation. Instead it is an attempt to undermine the already limited protection that workers have by focusing on the needs of business.' The TUC leader concluded: 'Businesses are responsible for a working culture that injures a quarter of a million workers every year and makes a further half a million employees ill. The review should by investigating this instead. Rather than focusing solely on the 'needs of business', the government should protect workers by increasing inspections and enforcement action against employers who put their staff at risk by ignoring existing laws, as well as introducing a legal duty on directors to protect their workers.' The review findings are due in July.
Review must debunk 'burdens' myth
Unions have warned that essential regulation and enforcement of health and safety must not be abandoned by the government. Prospect health and safety officer Sarah Page said the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) union welcomed the review ordered by David Cameron, but said 'it must be clear that there is a world of difference between petty bureaucracy enacted under the label of health and safety and HSE regulation designed to prevent deaths and disease in the workplace.' She added that the review should 'debunk the myth of the 'burden' of health and safety that masks the wider picture; last year alone about 1,180 people were fatally injured at work or in work road incidents, and thousands made ill or diseased.' Chris Keates, general secretary of teaching union NASUWT, said: 'The NASUWT believes that health and safety regulation needs to be strengthened, not weakened by attempts to chip away at the already inadequate health and safety inspection and enforcement regime by prioritising profit and cost over of the safety of teachers and pupils.' Hilda Palmer of the Hazards Campaign was also critical. She said: 'There is a lack of evidence or fact to support the need or value of cutting regulation of health and safety, a lack of balance in failing to mention the burden on workers hurt or made ill, and on the families of those killed, and a failure to mention the massive cost of up to £30 billion per year of bad health and safety, the majority of which employers externalise onto all of us.'Judith Hackitt, the chair of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), said in a letter to Lord Young that too many people use health and safety as an excuse. HSE says health and safety is often invoked to disguise someone's real motives - concerns over costs or complexity, or an unwillingness to honestly defend an unpopular decision.
Controversial MP is new safety minister
A member of parliament referred to in the press as a Conservative Party 'attack dog' and who before becoming an MP worked for a union-busting PR firm that creates front organisations for polluting industries is the new health and safety minister. Chris Grayling, who was shadow Home Secretary before the election, is now minister of state at the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). He reports to DWP secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith. Mr Grayling, who has been MP for Epsom and Ewell since 2001, started his career as a BBC and Channel 4 journalist before moving into public relations. His website notes he became 'a director in the Employee Communication practice at international communications firm Burson-Marsteller. He ended his time there as the firm's European Marketing Director.' The company is well-known in trade union, health and safety and environmental activist circles. Burson-Marsteller is one of the more high profile 'union busting' firms and has acted on behalf of asbestos, tobacco, nuclear and chemical firms on regulatory and compensation issues. It is also regarded as a pioneer in the creation of 'astroturf' organisations, supposedly grassroots lobbying organisations that in fact support industry arguments. In the award-winning book 'Doubt is their product', academic David Michaels - who is now the head of the US government's Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) - notes that among the company's creations is the cleverly named 'Foundation for Clean Air Progress.' He writes: 'The organisation is run by Burson-Marsteller, the PR firm, using funds provided by the petroleum, trucking and other polluting industries.'
