Three Week Period Of Sustained Media Attack On Health And Safety Launched
As previously reported by Unionsafety, the government’s Red Tape Challenge website is leading the way in attacking health and safety legislation and providing the CBI and SME lobby with the tool to do so.
Now a re-launch of that website has been conducted by using a mass media promotion exercise to promote a new 3 week period of attack on health and safety and encourage the business community to utilise the website, something they have not done sufficiently so far. Not too dissimilar in the way business does not use the numerous websites designed for them, giving them free health and safety advice and resources.
These 3 weeks will no doubt see newspaper after newspaper promoting the Red Tape Challenge attack on health & safety, and the bias under reporting of the views of those opposed to the abolition of any health and safety legislation.
This continues and promotes the Government’s paranoia over anything that they see as regulating business and making it morally and practically responsible for the heath, welfare, and safety of its employees.
Now, the HSE are being used as an attack upon health & safety in schools with Judith Hackitt appearing on BBC news over the weekend, criticising those using health and safety as an excuse not to arrange school trips and events.
Inevitably, the TV news media will not report the full extent of the HSE’s head’s argument, and will use her words to support the government’s line. This was clear from the BBC and ITV’s news casts over the weekend which only used minimum parts of her statement:
“Misguided "jobsworths" are robbing children of educational experiences and fun by over-zealous application of safety laws.”
Unreported by the TV news media was this part of her statement, surprisingly fully reported in the Daily Telegraph:
“Health and safety has surely become one of the most well-worn and dispiriting phrases in the English language. From news reports to TV dramas, it has become convenient shorthand for someone, somewhere, stopping someone from doing something they want to. Our message to bureaucrats who perpetuate these myths is clear. Own your own decisions. Don’t use health and safety law as a convenient scapegoat or we will challenge you.”
Sadly, that last sentence will never come to fruition as the Con-Dem(ned) Tory led coalition is busy destroying the resources of the HSE.
However, the HSE promoting the Red Tape Challenge on its website together with their own press release headlined ‘Public Urged To 'Restore Sanity' To Health And Safety Rulebook’, the HSE has aligned itself with those wishing to shred health and safety protection from workers, and replace it with a US style system of self regulation.
To date the response from the business lobby over this issue has been mute, and Chris Grayling in desperation to ensure justification for decimating health and safety in the UK, is re-launching the website specifically to start the bias reporting in the media and give the business lobby a second chance at using the website.
With the HSE’s press release being used to advertise and promote the Red Tape exercise, Grayling is trying to win the propaganda war by lying once again to the public. The press release on the HSE website says:
“A three-week focus on health and safety will get underway on 30 June with the future of around 200 regulations under debate. Ministers will use the views generated to remove unnecessary rules from the statute book. Suggestions made by the public will also be considered by the Löfstedt review of health and safety regulations.”
It quotes Grayling as saying:
"This is the opportunity that every beleaguered business leader, incredulous community group or outraged newspaper reader has been waiting for - a chance to directly change the laws underpinning Britain's health and safety culture.”
He continues:
"We have already started sweeping reforms to health and safety, but need the experience and insight of those most affected by red tape to help us root out needless bureaucracy and restore common sense to the heart of the system.
The purpose of health and safety regulation must be to protect people at work, not interfere unnecessarily. We will listen and we will act on what people have got to say, so it's never been more important for people to make their voice heard."
With the TUC taking the view that the Red Tape Challenge is an inappropriate way of determining the safety and health of workers and detracts from the real issues, most Trade Unions have ignored the government’s ‘red tape’ approach and website.
However, the alternative view is that simply attacking this as an inappropriate way of determining health & safety legislation and waiting until the results of the health & safety review planned for later this year, will not win the propaganda war with the public, and provide a balanced response to the government. All those involved in health and safety are fully aware that this is just a media campaign by the government to find further excuses to slash legislation. *
Unite union’s general secretary, Len McCluskey, commenting upon the appalling increasing number of deaths at work, also took the opportunity to attack the governments Red Tape Challenge re-launch. He said in a press release this week (29th June):
"These alarming figures ought to shock some sense into the government and persuade ministers once and for all what a nonsense their ‘Red Tape Challenge’ is. Health and safety regulations are not burdensome bureaucracy but essential protections.
The reality is that 171 people went to work and did not come home again. From Potters Bar to Piper Alpha the lesson to be learned is that strong and effective enforcement of health and safety legislation is vital, not the cuts and deregulatory agenda being pursued by the government.
The ‘Red Tape Challenge’ is a sham. It is not an appropriate way to determine government policy on health and safety at work - and it is an insult to workers everywhere, particularly those who have been injured themselves or for those families who have lost a loved one.
The only way to stop deaths at work is more inspections, more enforcement and no cuts."
TUC Risks this weekend repeated the TUC’s condemnation of the exercise:
“In a statement, the TUC was highly critical of the government approach. 'The government is, once again, spreading the myth that health and safety regulation is 'red tape'. We do not believe that government policy should be made on the basis of who shouts loudest, and do not think that the safety and health of workers should be determined by the outcome of a web-based discussion forum,' the statement said.
'The need to protect your workers is not a burden, it is a responsibility and, at times like this we should be trying to ensure that employers do obey the law and do not cut corners. Instead we have seen a retreat away from enforcement, two reviews of health and safety regulation and now this. What is to be next - a TV reality show to decide what piece of legislation gets ditched?'
TUC added that the approach is 'a flawed process which undermines the existing decision-making process on health and safety which seeks to regulate on the basis of consensus and evidence.”
Interestingly, the first barrage against health and safety via the Red Tape Challenge website resulted in more people supporting existing legislation and in fact calling for increased enforcement, than those from business supporting the government’s line.
Many trade unionists and campaigners such as Hilda Palmer from Hazards and union safety reps, in addition to health and safety managers, attacked Grayling’s attempts to shred the legislation.
Hilda palmer said in one of her many comments on the Red Tape Challenge website:
“Employers aren’t swamped with regulations, there’s less now than there was 40 years ago; they aren’t over enforced, can expect an inspection only once in 38 years (outside of major hazards and apart from incidents), only 1 on 13 major and fatal injuries is even investigated, and in 98% of major injuries there is no enforcement action at all, not even an improvement notice.
There is masses of help and advice on hand from HSE and Environmental Health Officers, yet still employers kill and injure and make workers sick through failing to have even basic minimum standards.
Health and safety isn’t about conkers bonkers, its about being able to go to the toilet, having a toilet and place to wash hands and eat lunch on building site; about not being chained to desk for 12 hours a day or being subjected to violence and bullying. It’s about decent working conditions, treating workers like human beings. We need to wake up a realise that we won’t know what we had until its gone unless we stop them trying to take away the most fundamental right – to be able to goo to work and come home unharmed at the end of the shift."
Dorothy Wright from FACK (Families Against Corporate Killers) commented:
"I am not surprised at the ignorance of the actual Heath and Safety laws shown by some of those commenting on here. Please read the sections I have mentioned above EVERY single one of them are vital to protecting employees from unscrupulous employers who have no qualms about risking the lives of their workforce"
It is for this reason that Grayling has had to now introduce this new 3 week period to allow business to bombard the website with demands to slash most health and safety legislation.
Previous comments supporting existing H&S legislation and framework will of course be ignored, and so one again Hilda Palmer and others will have to post all over again!
Read Judith Hackitt's full statement to the Daily Telegraph here
Source: HSE / TUC Risks / BBC News
*Make your comment in support of healthy and safety on Red Tape website and copy to the Unionsafety Editor, Chris Ingram here
See also previous Unionsafety new items:
Government Website Attacking Health And Safety Given Second Bite
Health & Safety A Moral And Legal Issue That Needs Defending
Challenge The Red Tape Attack On H&S Urges Hazards
What Kind Of People Think Protecting Life A Burden?
The Löfstedt Review Of Health And Safety Legislation And Compensation
