Official Workplace Deaths Figures Grossly Inaccurate

Ahead of this years (International) Workers Memorial Day event on 28th April, every opportunity is being taken to expose the myths created by the tabloids and the Tory-led Con-Dem(ned) government; that health and safety protection at work is burden on industry and that the UK is the safest place to work in Europe.

The reality could not be further from the truth, but rather than discuss the situation in an honest manner, Chris Grayling MP who is leading the charge against not only health and safety protection at work; but the rights of the disabled; refuses to meet with organisations such as FACK (Families Against Corporate Killers) and Hazards.

Then again, since when did Tory policy on health and safety allow the truth to get in the way?

Commenting on the appalling reality of death rates caused by callous and unscrupulous employers, and on the forthcoming WMD event, North West TUC Regional Secretary Alan Manning said:

“Workers Memorial Day remembers those who have paid with their lives and their health for their work.

The death toll in Lancashire gives the lie to the tabloid myths about ‘health and safety’. These are real people, who are real victims.

Workers’ Memorial Day gives us the opportunity to highlight the preventable nature of most workplace accidents and ill health and to promote campaigns and union organisation in the fight for improvements in workplace safety.

Over 12, 000 deaths each year are also estimated to have been caused by past exposure at work - primarily exposure to chemicals and dusts.

But this is a massive underestimate of the actual work-related deaths which are up to 50,0000, including asbestos-related diseases. That’s why our slogan for the day is ‘Remember the dead – Fight for the living’.”

The reality is that the Health and Safety Executive have been starved of resources and capitulated years ago to the Government’s attitude that Health & Safety regulations are a burden on business, ignoring the burden on society of the financial and emotional costs of workplace deaths and injuries. Injuries often cause permanent disability and then result in increase to jobless and welfare costs.

Furthermore it has not even fulfilled its responsibility of the custodian of accurate figures for workplace injuries, deaths and accidents; and with the government's changes to RIDDOR, the stats will become even less representative.

Professor Steve Tombs and Dr David Whyte undertook research and produced a report into the true HSE failings in 2010 entitled ‘Regulatory surrender: death, injury and the non-enforcement of law’.

One of the most damning statements in that report shows the total acquiescence of the HSE in face of the Government’s attacks on health and safety legislation and culture:

“Health and Safety Executive (HSE) figures on the number of people killed at work in Britain fell last year to a record low.  The HSE provisional data released on 30 June 2010, which exclude work-related road, marine, air accident deaths, work-related deaths of members of the public and the entire occupational disease death toll, show that 151 workers were killed between 1 April 2009 and 31 March 2010 compared to 178 deaths in the previous year and an average number over the last five years of 220 deaths annually.”

Further it refers to a report that same year by the UK Statistics Authority which condemned the HSE’s stats:

“The holes in HSE’s occupational injury and disease statistics came in for strong criticism in a May 2010 UK Statistics Authority report. The Authority checked HSE’s figures against a code of practice for official statistics and indicated they do not make the grade, concluding “HSE does not produce an overall figure for work-related fatalities in Great Britain.”  

It recommended HSE “investigate the feasibility of producing statistics on the total number of work-related injuries and fatalities.”

As a result, successive Governments have been able to argue for a massive reduction in the resources of the HSE, with major job losses incurred during the premiership of Tony Blair.

This formed the basis of the current Con-Dem(ned) government attacks on legislation and health & safety protection of workers since the 18th Century.

Both government and the media ignore these basic realities about the official figures of deaths at work:

They exclude the following work-related deaths:

* road (those killed driving petrol tankers, or haulage drivers for example)

* marine (e.g deaths of any English passengers and crew of the Concordia would not be included in HSE stats)

* air accident deaths ( crew of passenger planes for example),

* work-related deaths of members of the public (deaths to public caused as a result of scaffolding collapses)

* the entire occupational disease death toll (anyone dieing of asbestosis, work related cancers)

Steve Tombs continues on the issues of who bares the cost of health and safety failings:

“Most of the costs of work-related injuries and ill-health are borne by society and individuals, so while employers produce death, injury and illness on the way to making profits, we – individuals and society as a whole - are subsidising those profits... Any further move from law and enforcement will simply increase these costs, increase this subsidy, and increase the price paid by working men and women and their families.”

David Whyte added:

“You won’t see the true costs of health and safety on any company profit/loss account only because the legal and political systems allow those costs to be ‘externalised’  - fobbed off on the rest of us. If the consequence of lighter regulation in the UK will be that employers act with impunity, the only possible outcome is that the burden of costs to families is increased.”

The claim that the UK is the safest country in the whole of Europe to work is erroneous at best, and an outright lie at the worst.

Source: Hazards / HSE

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