The following has been supplied by the TUC:
The passage recently of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Act means workers will only be able to claim compensation for a workplace injury or disease if they can demonstrate employer negligence, even if it is accepted that employer had broken criminal safety laws. 'It is a bit like if a burglar enters your home to burgle you, and when they are nicking your TV they knock over a valuable vase and the insurer demands that you prove that the burglar was negligent in knocking over the vase,' TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson explained in the Stronger Unions blog. 'It is about bare, raw political ideology from the anti-worker pro-business Tory hawks.' He said claims compensation is out of control are 'rubbish. In fact compensation claims by workers have been falling for over 15 years and are usually considered to be lower than in most other industrialised countries. A TUC report a few years ago showed that only about 1 in 8 workers who is likely to be liable for compensation actually claimed.' He added that the cost of compensation claims to employers and insurers can drive safety improvements. 'The bill may now be law but that is not the end of things,' he wrote. 'Unions will continue to support workers and to take compensation claims and are likely to challenge this ridiculous and reactionary law by taking a complaint to Europe on the grounds that workers are being denied any recourse to compensation when they are injured because an employer has committed a criminal act. This battle may have been lost but the fight goes on.'
