North is a dangerous workplace

Apr 28 2008 by Iain Laing, The Journal

THE evidence would suggest that today, on Workers Memorial Day, the North East remains a dangerous place to work. The last count by the Health and Safety Executive shows that 112,000 North East people suffered an illness or injury caused or made worse by their work. That’s around 10% of the region’s working population, far higher than the rest of England, and it does not appear to be declining. The most recent report shows there were five people killed at work and over 1,300 ‘major injuries’ to working people. Again, this rate was higher here compared to the rest of the country.

On top of this, death from mesothelioma in the North East is substantially higher than the national average. Regional differences reflect the historic distribution of asbestos using-industries, especially shipbuilding, railway engineering and the production of asbestos insulation.

Behind each one of these statistics is a very human, often tragic, story of lives lost or ruined. This is even more horrific because the vast majority of incidents leading to injury or illness are avoidable. Yet the understandable attention given to the impact of gun crime completely dwarfs the scant regard paid to workers losing their lives year after year through the negligence and indolence of bad employers. Morally, this ongoing slaughter is an outrage. Economically, it is unacceptable and unaffordable. The cost to business directly is astronomical.

There is much associated with the region’s history resonating with injury and ill-health. The latest report, however, shows that the new service economy is at least as likely to be contributing to the next generation of workers made too ill to work by poor occupational health management at work. The British Medical Journal describes this period as dangerous as any in history to be a worker.

TUC analysis shows that as few as one in five workers receives any kind of occupational health provision at work or through their employer. While this remains the case there can be little doubt that we will not see any significant reduction in the scale of occupational ill-health, injury and debility we’re enduring today.

For trade unions this has been a high agenda item for over 100 years. Evidence shows when employers work with trade unions on health and safety management the workplace becomes twice as safe. The ongoing trauma demonstrates, as working people throughout the world will be today, that much, much more needs to be done to protect the health and safety of working people.