Roger Bannister, leading member of our National Executive Council (and perennial General Secretary candidate) has moved the opening Composite motion at National Delegate Conference, dealing with the attacks by the Coalition Government on the regulation of Health and Safety at Work.
The entire edifice of health and safety regulation exists only because of the struggle of our movement over the past two centuries - the fight for the Ten Hours Bill was a fight to limit working time! Now that we have a Government determined to eliminate the "burdens on business" imposed by requiring employers to exercise common sense so that their workers aren't injured, we need to return to a campaigning approach to the promotion of health, safety and welfare at work.
With 171 work related fatalities a year this is not the trivial issue presented in the right-wing press.
Even under the previous Government, inadequate resourcing of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) meant that the role of trade unions was increasing in importance. Now, however, we need to engage our members directly and maximise pressure on employers and politicians to ensure that the regulatory basis for the protection of health, safety and welfare at work, established for us by previous generations, is protected.
Unanimous support for Composite C has been a good start to Conference.
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This is good news and great to se UNIDSON recomiting to fighting back against this government's deadly attacks on our own, and future generations, health and safety. Just a point though, the 171 fatalties mentioned are less than 1% of the total workers killedin workplace incidents - over 1,300 per year- and ignores completely the 50,000 a year who die from work-related illness (18,000 work cancers, 20,000 work heart disease, and 12,000 work respiratory and other illnesses, we owe it to all killed by work to use the real figures not the false ones! UNISON supports the Hazards 'We Didn't Vote to Die at Work' Campaign- see http://hazards.org/votetodie and Facebook group- and the latest poster steps up our campaign 'Stop it you're kiling us' which would be great customised by unison and distibuted to every branch, see http://www.hazards.org/gallery/stopkillingus.htm. Contact Hazards Campaign info@hazardscampaign.org.uk
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