Health and safety culture? I wish...
David Cameron's resolution last week 'to kill off the health and safety culture for good') has drawn fresh criticism from unions, safety bodies and corporate killing campaigners. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson said the prime minister's comments 'represent probably the biggest verbal assault on health and safety by a senior politician for many years, which is saying something, given that only last summer the PM was blaming the English riots on our health and safety culture.' He added: 'I wish we had a health and safety culture in the UK... Instead of headline-grabbing claims, what we need is a commitment to protect workers with proper enforcement and penalties against those employers that flout the law and put lives at risk.' Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK), said the prime minister's speech was 'completely fact-free' and 'based in fantasy'. FACK spokesperson Louise Taggart said: 'Whereas Cameron believes he is signalling the end of alleged 'burdens on business' in fact he has just sounded the death knell for hundreds of workers and members of the public.' Louise, whose brother Michael was electrocuted at work aged 26, added Cameron's casualties would include 'loved ones who, like my brother, will leave the house one day only to return in an undertaker's van.' Richard Jones of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) described the prime minister's comments as 'appalling and unhelpful'. He added: 'The number of work-related fatalities rose recently for the first time in years. Please, prime minister, let's not turn that statistic into a trend for the sake of a few easy headlines.' A Hazards Campaign spokesperson said: 'Rather than facing up to the real problems employers cause in their failure to manage workplace health and safety the Tories choose to look the other way - again, as ever. Cameron's announcements will do nothing, absolutely nothing, to reduce the real burden borne by workers, their families and friends or the state. He's looking the wrong way.'
David Cameron's resolution last week 'to kill off the health and safety culture for good') has drawn fresh criticism from unions, safety bodies and corporate killing campaigners. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson said the prime minister's comments 'represent probably the biggest verbal assault on health and safety by a senior politician for many years, which is saying something, given that only last summer the PM was blaming the English riots on our health and safety culture.' He added: 'I wish we had a health and safety culture in the UK... Instead of headline-grabbing claims, what we need is a commitment to protect workers with proper enforcement and penalties against those employers that flout the law and put lives at risk.' Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK), said the prime minister's speech was 'completely fact-free' and 'based in fantasy'. FACK spokesperson Louise Taggart said: 'Whereas Cameron believes he is signalling the end of alleged 'burdens on business' in fact he has just sounded the death knell for hundreds of workers and members of the public.' Louise, whose brother Michael was electrocuted at work aged 26, added Cameron's casualties would include 'loved ones who, like my brother, will leave the house one day only to return in an undertaker's van.' Richard Jones of the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) described the prime minister's comments as 'appalling and unhelpful'. He added: 'The number of work-related fatalities rose recently for the first time in years. Please, prime minister, let's not turn that statistic into a trend for the sake of a few easy headlines.' A Hazards Campaign spokesperson said: 'Rather than facing up to the real problems employers cause in their failure to manage workplace health and safety the Tories choose to look the other way - again, as ever. Cameron's announcements will do nothing, absolutely nothing, to reduce the real burden borne by workers, their families and friends or the state. He's looking the wrong way.'
