health and safety

The Centre for Corporate Accountability has revealed that, in the last 20 months, 9 apprentice workers - all under the age of 23 - have been killed on work placements as part of Government-funded courses. It is not known how many apprentices have been injured.

One of the deaths has resulted in a director and company being prosecuted for manslaughter. The trial is due to take place later this year at Exeter Crown Court. Another has resulted in the company pleading guilty to health and safety offences, whilst five of the deaths continue to be under investigation.

At the time, all of the apprentices were undertaking the work-placement part of their course/apprenticeship, and were on vocational courses funded by the government.s Learning and Skills Council, which funds all post-16 training and education for young people.

It has now been accepted that Formaldehyde, a chemical to which millions of workers are exposed to, causes cancer. The International Agency for Research on Cancer had already concluded that formaldehyde was probably carcinogenic to humans, but new studies have now found hard evidence showing that formaldehyde causes nasopharyngeal cancer in humans.

Formaldehyde is used mainly in the production of resins that are used as adhesives and binders for wood products, pulp, paper, glasswool and rockwool. It is also used extensively in the production of plastics and coatings, in textile finishing, in the manufacture of industrial chemicals, and as a disinfectant and preservative (formalin) used in labs and in morgues for embalming.

As the Health and Safety jargon goes, 99% of accidents are preventable. Here are just a few examples of cases where negligence by employers - who would rather make extra profits than prevent accidents - has been exposed.

Figures released by trade unions the TGWU and UCATT show that 104 people died at work in the North West of England in 2003-04, the highest of any region in England, Scotland or Wales. The number of major injuries at work during the same two-year period was 7,218, the second highest of any region. Not one single company director was prosecuted for these deaths or injuries.

In March 1996, when in opposition, Labour gave its support to a law for director liability when Michael Meacher MP said in Parliament, “Responsibility for health and safety must be vested at the highest level of each organisation. Companies should appoint an individual at board level with overall responsibility for health and safety.”

Despite the target, set by the government in February 2001, to cut deaths and major injuries in construction by 40 per cent by 2004/05 and by 66 per cent by 2009/10 the murdering of building workers is still going on unchecked.

Nearly twice as many people die from fatal injuries at work than are victims of homicide, a new report has revealed. At least 1,300 people died as a result of fatal occupational injuries in 2005-06 in England and Wales, compared with 765 homicide deaths. It was also found that non-fatal workplace injuries requiring hospitalisation were far higher than those needing treatment following a violent crime.

Yet at a time when crime, especially violent crime, takes centre stage and any working class youth who likes wearing a hood is stigmatized as a potential mass murderer, the violent crime and murder taking place in the workplace everyday is never reported. Moreover, while Labour responds to every Daily Mail hang-and-flog-them headline by throwing yet more people into already overcrowded jails the perpetrators of crime in the workplace get off virtually scot-free

Workplace deaths across the south west of the country are increasing, according to the Health & Safety Executive, a fact which it finds to be “disappointing”. From March 2007 to March 2008, deaths on the job rose by 16%, with a total of 28 fatalities. Despite injuries in the workplace scaling 240,000, the authorities managed a mere 70 prosecutions across the region; a rather low clearance rate, some might say. Some 38% of injuries were due to “slips, trips and falls” in construction, agriculture and manufacturing.

If you are unfortunate enough to be one of these many casualties and living in the north Somerset area then even more bad luck awaits you, because you’ll have to wait longer for an ambulance than anywhere else in the entire country. Unsurprisingly, these delays have a knock-on effect as paramedics have to stay with the patient until an ambulance turns up, which leads to crews being further delayed at Weston General Hospital for anything up to 45 minutes.