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Dave Joyce National Health, Safety & Environment Officer has announced this year's WMD message which will appear in the Hazards Magazine which is an editorially independent health and safety magazine published by Hazards Publications Ltd. Hazards is the only independent, union-friendly magazine to win major international awards. The Magazine promotes the clear message that workplace unions are the best hope for better, safer work - and Hazards provides the information and resources to make the Union job easier. Hazards looks behind the company safety hype, and gives union answers to workplace problems. Using a global network of union safety correspondents, Hazards makes sure unions have the best health and safety news and information available anywhere. In the Special Workers Memorial Day Edition Jan/March Number 129, the CWU along with other unions had half and full-page messages/ads included. A copy of the CWU message is attached. On Workers Memorial Day, 28 April each year, we remember those who have lost their lives to a workplace accident or illness and continue to fight for improved health and safety standards. Workers Memorial Day this year is focusing on hazardous, dangerous and carcinogenic substances in the workplace. For years the CWU along with the TUC and other major unions has campaigned on dangerous substances and fought legal cases on behalf of our members injured, made ill and even killed by such substances like Asbestos in the workplace.
Statistics from the TUC have just been published. These are the official, global work-related numbers, although international union organisations think that the real figures are in reality much higher:-
We strive for a world where work doesn’t kill, injure or make workers sick – this is possible and employers must stop it! In the aftermath of the outgoing Tory/Lib Dem Government, leaving a decimated, deregulated and toothless HSE enforcement body, we must continue our fight to reclaim the health and safety agenda. Health and safety enforcement in Britain is "withering away". The number of people employed by the HSE has continued to fall year on year and has dropped by around 15% in the five years under the Tory/Lib Dem Coalition Government. Frontline HSE inspectors are down by even more following Government orders to cut Safety Inspections and give companies an easy time. It’s not just the numbers of inspectors that’s crucial. It’s what those inspectors are allowed to do – HSE is a watchdog whose teeth have been pulled. The Coalition Government and in particular Prime Minister David Cameron made clear their intentions, prior to the 2010 election and they carried them out. The Government has embraced every successive business-friendly recommendation to reduce inspections and take a more advisory light-touch role, yet ignored repeated warnings from UK Select Committees that there is a desperate need for greater enforcement and harsher penalties for health and safety offences. Union workplaces are safer workplaces. CWU health and safety reps are there protecting and representing CWU members every day and they deserve great credit each and every one of them. We need union organised workplaces, active Union Safety Reps, strong safety laws and regulations, strictly enforced by a reinvigorated HSE – to end preventable harm at work. Further Workers’ Memorial Day information will be issued in LTBs including arrangements at Conference, during which Workers’ Memorial Day 28th April falls. The CWU will be publishing further LTBs, a special Workers’ Memorial Day pamphlet, issuing Workers’ Memorial Day ribbons to Conference delegates and making resources and goods available to Branches and Regional Health and Safety Forums. We will be holding a minutes silence at CWU Conference following special addresses to each Conference, we will be publishing a national Workers’ Memorial Day events list and other additional items are currently under consideration. Please support Workers’ Memorial Day in whatever way you can. Source: CWU LTB228/15 |
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