DEADLY BUSINESS RESOURCES
Hazards webpages
Hazards health and
safety enforcement
HSE’s desperately poor safety enforcement record means 9
out of 10 major injuries don’t result in an investigation.
Only dangerous employers now have reason to feel safe.
Hazards
enforcement webpage
Hazards work and
health webpages
It’s not just fatal accidents that kill at work. Many, many
more are harmed and killed by occupational diseases.
Hazards
work and health webpage
Hazards compensation
webpage
Only a minority of workers injured or made sick as a result of
their jobs ever get compensation.
Hazards compensation webpage.
Workers' Memorial
Day
28 April Each year worldwide Workers' Memorial Day activities
increase now numbering thousands and involving hundreds of thousands
of workers. Hazards magazine reports on the burgeoning global
union activities.
Hazards 28 April webpage
ICL/ Stockline disaster
A multi-disciplinary team including workplace health, risk, employment
rights and relations, corporate crime, architecture and accounting
from the universities of Strathclyde and Stirling found health
and safety standards at the ICL factory in Maryhill, Glasgow were
seriously deficient and that workers were "actively discouraged"
from raising safety concerns.
Hazards ICL/Stockline disaster
webpage
Other related Hazards webpages
Latest news on the health and safety records
of BP and Corus
Corporate killing laws
UK Ministry of justice
guide to work killings law
The government has published guidance on the new Corporate Manslaughter
and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which came into force on 6 April
2008.
Corporate
Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 webpage
HSE guide to UK work
killings law
The Health and Safety Executive has published guidance on the
new Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007, which
came into force on 6 April 2008.
HSE
corporate manslaughter webpage
CCA guide to UK work
killings law
The Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) has published a
guide to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act
which came into force on 6 April 2008.
CCA
summary of the Act’s key provisions • Risks
351
Guides to the Canadian workplace killing
law
The Centre for Corporate Accountability
(CCA) and the United Steelworkers union (USW) have published guides
to the Westray Bill (C-45), the Canadian workplace killing law.
CCA
Canadian killing law webpage • USW
guide to the Westray Bill.
Guide to the Australian
workplace killing laws
The Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA) has published a
guide Australia’s workplace killing leglislation.
CCA
Australian killing law webpage
Corporate crime related reports
Britain: Death fines
below 0.2 per cent of turnover
Most large companies convicted of safety offences involving a
workplace death are fined at less than a 700th of their annual
turnover, a new study has found. If individuals earning an average
annual income of £24,769 were sentenced at this level, they
would be fined just £35.
CCA
news release, including link to the
full report, The relationship between the levels of fines
imposed upon companies convicted of health and safety offences
resulting from deaths, and the turnover and gross profits of these
companies, CCA, March 2008
Britain: Directors
must be made to be safe
Boardrooms must be compelled to take workplace health and safety
seriously. ‘Bringing justice to the boardroom’, prepared
for construction union UCATT by the Centre for Corporate Accountability,
says there has been a “complete failure” of the voluntary
approach to reducing injuries and fatalities in the workplace.
UCATT
news release and full report • CCA
news release and background materials, October 2007.
Health and safety
regulatory policy, Britain
The Centre for Corporate Accountability has produced an online
guide to government and Health and Safety Commission policy on
health and safety regulation. It says it is also very important
to look at the government's wider regulatory policies as these
are increasingly having an impact upon the policies that the HSC
adopts in relation to safety.
CCA
regulatory policy webpages
Work manslaughter
cases in full
The Centre for Corporate Accountability Up-to-date details of
all convictions, acquittals and ongong work-related manslaughter
trials involving the prosecution of companies, directors and business
owners can be accessed on the CCA website. As of 20 January 2003,
eight incidents have resulted in the conviction of four companies,
seven directors, and two business owners
CCA
manslaughter page
Britain: Courts protect
wonga much better than workers
The courts disqualify company directors risking cash hundreds
of times more often than directors risking people’s health
and safety, a major study has found. Research for the Health and
Safety Executive (HSE) published this week reported that since
the introduction of a director disqualification act in the mid-80s
only a handful of directors have been disqualified for breaching
health and safety laws compared to over 1,500 each year for breaches
of financial rules.
University
of Warwick news release • A survey of the use
and effectiveness of the Company Directors Disqualification Act
1986 as a legal sanction against directors convicted of health
and safety offences, RR597, HSE, 2007, summary
page and full report [pdf]
Britain: Directors
publish voluntary code
Company directors have published their own voluntary guidelines
to good boardroom safety practice. The Institute of Directors
(IoD) says the new guidance will remind directors it is their
responsibility to lead on health and safety and establish policies
and practices that make it an integral part of their culture and
values. HSE describes it as “written by directors, for directors.”
HSE
news release, 29 October 2007 and new
director leadership webpages • Leading health and safety
at work, HSE/IoD, October 2007 [pdf]
Draft Directors'
Duties Bill
Unions TGWU and UCATT are promoting a Health and Safety (Directors'
Duties) Bill. November 2004.
Hazards, issue 88, November 2004 [pdf]
Death on the job
AFL-CIO has produced a report, 'Death on the Job: The Toll of
Neglect', spelling out the state of safety and health protections
for America’s workers. The report includes state-by-state
profiles of workers’ safety and health and features state
and national information on workplace fatalities, injuries, illnesses,
the number and frequency of workplace inspections, penalties and
public-employee coverage under the Occupational Safety and Health
Act (OSHAct).
'Death
on the Job' Report, 2008, AFL-CIO, USA
USA: Families demand
work deaths justice
Widows, parents, children and other family members of victims
of workplace fatalities and occupational diseases in the USA are
demanding a ‘Family Bill of Rights’. It outlines 10
simple rights that should be afforded those left behind when a
worker dies on the job, including: Information on the role of
official agencies in investigating the death; notifying family
members of all meetings, hearings and other communication between
investigators and the employer and allowing participation in such
events; allowing family members the right to view all physical
evidence gathered as part of the accident investigation, and ensuring
that the evidence is secured from employer tampering; and involving
family members in the investigation process, such as allowing
them an opportunity to offer names of individuals who may have
useful evidence for the investigators.
Family Bill of Rights news release, November 2007 [pdf]
• The Family Bill of Rights can be downloaded from the USMWF
and Defending Science [pdf]
websites
USA: Committee maps
out deadly work causes
US Representative George Miller, chair of the House Education
and Labor Committee marked Labor Day, 3 September 2007, with the
launch of a new interactive online map that enables people to
learn about many of the workplace fatalities that have occurred
in their own communities this year.
US
House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor
news release. Interactive map of work fatalities, 31 August
2007.
International corporate accountability resources
Voice of Industrial Death, Australia
USA: Database on ‘crimes against workers’
The US Center for Progressive Reform (CPR) has launched the country’s first-ever database of state prosecutions of health and safety ‘Crimes Against Workers’, including case files, court decisions, media clips, and advocacy resources. CPR says: “We're hopeful this database will serve as a resource for prosecutors, advocates, reporters, and others who are seeking to ensure that those who commit crimes against workers are punished accordingly and that other potential bad actors hear the message that they will be held accountable for criminal misconduct.”
CPR blog and Crimes Against Workers Database. Risks 824. 4 November 2017
European Coalition
for Corporate Justice (ECCJ)
ECCJ brings together civil society organisations including NGOs,
trade unions, consumers' organisations and academic institutions
promoting Corporate Accountability (CA). It represents over 250
civil society organisations present in 16 different countries
around Europe.
European Coalition
for Corporate Justice
Centre for Corporate
Accountability Bangladesh
Details of the Centre for Corporate Accountability's (CCA) activities
in Bangladesh.
CCA
Bangladesh
Victorian Trades
Hall Council Corporate Accountability webpages
Respect, dignity and the right to stay alive at work, Australia.
Victorian
Trades Hall Council
Corporate watch research
resources
Anybody can do corporate research, but to become skilled at it
takes years of experience and deep knowledge about corporate practices
and governance structures. AFL-CIO has published some of the top
websites used by union researchers in their campaigns to investigate
corporations violating workers' rights.
AFL-CIO
corporate watch research resources, USA
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