Guest writer, Ivan Timson, Senior Health & Safety Rep with Unite based in Leicester, reports on last week’s lobby of Parliament organised by trade unions UCATT and Unite:
Today (June 11th) I was privileged to be part of the Ucatt and Unite “Save our Safety” construction safety lobby at Westminster, supported by FACK and safety activists. In there call to parliament to stop eroding away health & safety protection.
At the photo call on College Green unions sang out what the wanted. ‘What do we want, SAFE sites, when do we want them, NOW!’ MP’s from Westminster also joined the photo call, with MP Dennis Skinner holding the FACK banner at one point.
Inside Westminster
If you hadn’t arrived early, then you soon had trouble securing a seat in a packed committee room 14, which saw many impassioned speeches from union leaders and safety activists.
Ucatt’s General secretary Steve Murphy said “this government will have blood on its hands, workers blood!” Gail Cartmail, assistant General Secretary of Unite the union said she was “sick to death” of journalists who joked about the so-called “elf and safety culture”. She also spoke about the tragedy in Bangladesh and asked people to look at the latest edition of Hazards, which showed the devastation that was caused in the building collapse.
Tony O’Brien Construction safety campaigner told the gathering,
“it’s all about money” and accused Labour MP’s of not standing up enough for Health & Safety. He went onto say “All power to the MP’s in this room, but there are 200 or more out there. It’s got to change!”
Labour MP’s Jim Sheridan, David Hamilton and others also spoke. Rita Donaghy, Labour peer, author of the 2009 ‘One death is too Many’ report. Spoke about the recent Mesothelioma bill being “too little, too late” and said “if we had directors responsible for health and safety, then we would see a concentration of the mind on the issue”
But the most noted speech was by a tearful Linda Whelan of FACK, as she recounted the terrible day when her son Craig died at work, along with a colleague.
Linda urged the unions to work together to make workplaces safer. She said,
“This government are lying, and workers are dying” and reminded us that more than half of the deaths occur in the so-called “low-risk” sectors.
Government apprenticeships aren’t even safe!
As 16 year old Cameron Minshall found to his cost, as he was dragged into an industrial lathe. His mum drove him to work each day, as she didn’t want her son to be a ‘scrounger’. But now thinks she drove him to his death, and has to live with that thought everyday.
Linda received a standing ovation from all inside the committee room.
Only time will tell if this lobby of the government will have the desired effect to reduce the number of deaths at work. But seeing as this government is ideologically pursuing their agenda on health and safety and Labour are not opposing these cuts that kill strongly enough, I fear many more families will lose loved ones.
Watch a video of the demo outside Parliament here
You can read the full story about Craig Whelan from FACK website here
