Corporate killings

[Steve]

There seems to be a marked increase in deaths at work. Some due to the casualisation of the workplace but many to do with profiteering. Last week a Burnley man Mr Pennington (46), of Cog Lane was killed, when he was hit by a rail maintenance vehicle as he was getting off an engineering train in Cannock, Staffordshire.

An investigation has now been launched to find out how the tragedy occurred.
The deaths of Mr Pennington and his friend and colleague, Mr Martin Oates, have brought renewed calls for tougher safety checks on the rail network.

The tragedy follows the death of four railway employees who were hit by a run-away wagon on the West Coast Mainline at Tebay, in Cumbria, in February.

Two firms were recently fined for the deaths of a worker, a student Michael Mungoven who been hired as casual labour for rail maintenance company Balfour Beatty, through the McGinley Recruitment Services agency. The six-figure fines imposed on the two companies responsible for the 22-year-old rail worker's death were described yesterday as "irrelevant" by the dead man's family.

Of course these investigations are often toothless exercises and firms make enough profits to cover payouts like these. Legislation is in place but is often ignored and the unions are hopeless preferring to sit down and meet with MPs etc to discuss the issues instead of acting. What we need are workers to take direct action and to walk off the job and for others to support them. Of course unofficial action like this would be frowned upon by the TUC unions and they will do all they can to prevent it. That is why we need to go beyond the union structures when we need to.

[Mitch]

www.hse.gov.uk

They're a useless and ineffective bureaucratic arse licker to central government the Health & Safety Executive - but there are some interesting statistics on deaths and injuries in the UK workplace on their site. The HSE have limited powers to prosecute, are not independent of central government/no union imput/workplace representation here.

How they can include these statistics on their site, and not be outraged is not a suprise. Legislation on Health and Safety is littered with loopholes, and this comes from central policy - a drive for a deregulated UK workforce resisting firmer legislation coming from the European Union.

I am in total agreement Steve that change can only come out of grass roots led direct action - locally that could be supported by a strong social forum, which by extension would support a building campaign against casualisation.

According to the HSE there were 235 fatal injuries to workers in 2003/4. This was a slight reduction of employee deaths, from 183 to 168, but an increase in the number of self-employed workers from 44 to 67. 21 of these deaths occurred at Morecambe Bay in February.

Agriculture has the highest rate of fatal injuries to workers, followed by Construction, Manufacturing and then Utilities.

Seems to me there's a direct link between the changing nature of work - increasing casualisation, atypical workers whether self-employed, homeworkers. casual contract workers and so forth - all 'workers' not 'employees' so often outside of any protective employment legisation - and deaths and accidents at work. So as I said to Weller (hey, where have you gone Weller?) some time back - New labour policy is about life and death - WAKE UP UNIONS as you suck on carrots again concerning corporate killing legisation promised leading upto election.

Local strong direct action campaigns - with thorough research into local companies, supported by community activists and social forums has to be a way forward. Gaining diaries and day to day notes on activities within some of these local companies by casual workers would be most enlightening. Deaths at work don't just happen, they'll have a long history of abysmal health and safety policy behind them, plus a long list of accidents, poor training and cost cutting. People have no idea what people are experiencing in Burnley & Nelson workplaces on a day to day basis, I do I've been in a few of them - stress, bullying, hiring and firing at will, lack of training, tretcherous health and safety conditions, accidents on a weekly basis. There's also a growing gap between public sector conditions at work and private sector businesses in Burnley - only a matter of time before those unregulated private sector conditions hit public sector workers though.

What also rarely gets discussed is how these abysmal conditions filter over and affect people's personal relations - the insecurity, and misery of work comes back into the family.

Pushing for a social forum and campaign against casualisation locally should be top priorities - if we are to build a strong direct action campaign to fight fatal injuries at work such as the death of Mr Pennington and others.

[Steve]

You couldn't make this up!

Employees are 'statutory fall guys'

Press Association
Thursday October 7, 2004

Workers are now first in line to be sued over an accident or disaster because of "botched" legislation, it was claimed today.
Under health and safety regulations, bad employers can now pass the buck to their staff after any workplace accident, according to whistleblowing charity Public Concern at Work.
The regulations, introduced a year ago with no publicity, mean that workers face having to pay unlimited damages if they don't raise concerns about health and safety risks, said the report.
The group claimed that if the regulations had been in place for the Potters Bar train crash two years ago, the worker who inspected the track weeks before the incident would have been made the "statutory fall guy".
Public Concern at Work director Guy Dehn said: "It's unacceptable that such a far-reaching and radical new law can be introduced with no publicity and without even a word of advice or guidance to those it affects."
The report warned that insurance premiums and legal costs could rocket for businesses, even though the law targeted workers.
"This is because safety chiefs and ministers ducked the key issue whether employers or employees should insure this new liability, leaving the matter to the courts," said Mr Dehn.
The Government was urgently considering the matter, according to Public Concern at Work.