Expert slams government's safe jobs 'fantasy'

Cuts to safety enforcement, regulation and budgets are being justified with government 'lies', UNISON members have been told. Addressing 150 concerned workers at a fringe meeting of the union's annual conference last week, Hazards Campaign spokesperson Hilda Palmer ripped into the cut price, cut back health and safety strategy which will see most workers in 'low risk' workplaces shunted off the official enforcement radar. 'The government claims that offices shops and schools - the kind of places where UNISON members work - are non-hazardous. This is wrong. You are actually quite likely to die of stress-related illnesses,' she said. She added that people who work with computers or in call centres are more likely to suffer from muscle and joint disorders. Employment minister Chris Grayling 'hated health and safety' and wanted to throw the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on the 'bonfire of the quangos,' she said. The minister has fronted a government assault on health and safety that has seen HSE inspector numbers slashed, preventive safety inspections cut back by 11,000 a year and an attack of safety regulations based on an unfounded claim they inhibit enterprise and are bad for business, she said. 'There is an acceptance that proactive inspections work,' Palmer added. 'But they are not taking place in agriculture, which kills more workers per 100,000 than any other industry, manufacturing and the whole of the public sector. The idea that work is safe is a lie.' The Hazards Campaign is leading a 'We didn't vote to die at work' campaign, to challenge the government's safety strategy.