International Workers Memorial Day 2009
29 Apr 2009
28th April is International Workers Memorial Day, when workers and trade unions remember the dead and fight for the living.
GMB delegates will be speaking at events around the country, including Preston, Manchester, Hartlepool, Liverpool and London.
GMB General Secretary challenges UK Government to do more to ensure the health and safety of workers.
GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny made the following statement: “I know from my own experience the devastating impact that workplace health and safety failings can have. Ask anyone who thinks it’s all “red tape” or “conkers bonkers” to meet the parents of Daniel Dennis, who was killed aged just 17 on his first week at work; or the workers of Mumbai and Alang in India, who have to work in conditions of severe deprivation and who are exposed to asbestos on a daily basis.
Ask them why more than 1500 people were killed at work last year – either on site or on the road – and why 50,000 died due to work-related diseases. Ask them why, when so many people are dying unnecessarily, when recession means employers are cutting back on health and safety provision, the Government is pursuing a Better Regulation agenda to reduce health and safety laws, and the HSE has fewer Inspectors than ever.
If these workers had been killed by terrorism or war, there would be national outrage. But because they died simply for doing their job, we see fit to trivialise the issue. We are calling upon the Government to take action now, to ensure that future generations of workers do not suffer as those that we remember today had to.”
The GMB are calling on the Government to take the following actions as a matter of urgency.
• Introduce specific legal health and safety duties on the collective boards of companies and organisations
• Increase the funding and resourcing of the Health and Safety Executive and Local Authority Environmental Health departments to 1st April 2002 levels.
• Investigate breaches of health and safety legislation wherever these are discovered, including cases of corporate manslaughter.
• Increasing enforcement action as both a punitive sanction and an example to other employers.
• Reject the concept of ‘better regulation’ in the development of health and safety policy, which attempts to cost-benefit analysis human lives.
• Enforce the Working Time Regulations, and remove the “opt-out”.
• Introduce increased legal rights for Health and Safety Representatives, including the right to represent colleagues in more than one workplace.
• Increase funding for research into the causes and treatment of work-related illnesses, particularly mesothelioma and other cancers.