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Hazards magazine, number 98, April-June 2007
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HSE
blocks new rights, says lives are not worth saving
As workplace deaths rise dramatically and the Health and Safety Executive’s
austerity programme leaves it haemorrhaging staff, mothballing work programmes
and shutting offices, Hazards editor Rory O’Neill looks
for clues on what unions – snubbed and so far refused any new rights
by HSE after its worker involvement consultation - should do next.
Introduction
It seemed a simple enough procedure. The Health and Safety Executive
(HSE) undertakes a major consultation exercise asking how to improve worker
consultation (Hazards 94). It finds out what employers, unions
and others want. It makes the changes for which there is general support.
It just didn’t turn out that way. What happened instead made last
year’s consultation a costly waste of time and a major snub to trade
unions.
More than 9 of 10 respondents to the consultation supported a right for
safety reps to be consulted on risk assessments and to receive a response
to safety queries. But an HSE paper to the 15 March Health and Safety
Commission (HSC) meeting recommended there should be no change in the
law and no new consultation rights. The HSE paper noted: “There
will be a high level of interest in the results of the consultation from
stakeholders. In particular, the TUC and trade unions are likely to be
disappointed that our proposals are not more far-reaching.” Earlier
this year Hazards predicted HSE would attempt to block any new
rights (Hazards 97).
Commenting on the outcome of the HSC meeting, a TUC spokesperson told
Hazards TUC was “disappointed that, despite overwhelming
support for legislative change, the HSC deferred making a decision on
the modest proposals that had been consulted on. We urge the HSC to respect
the views of those employers, safety representatives and safety professionals
who responded to the consultation exercise and implement the proposed
changes as soon as possible.”
After an intervention from TUC commissioners, it was agreed there should
be further discussions involving the TUC and employers’ organisation
CBI on whether changes could be made to either the regulations or the
related approved code of practice to deliver a safety rep right to be
consulted on risk assessments and to receive a response to safety queries.
A further paper on legislative changes will be produced in the next few
months.
HSC chair Bill Callaghan managed to put a positive gloss on a process
which has seriously dented the credibility of both HSE and HSC and led
to questions about their commitment to genuine consultation. Commenting
on a number of non-binding, voluntary measures also recommended in the
HSE paper and agreed by the meeting, including guidance for employers,
a revision of the ‘Brown Book’ on safety reps’ rights
and online tools for safety reps, he said: “This new approach, building
on the achievements already delivered, will help to bring workers and
their employers together to raise workplace standards and improve health
and safety performance.”
Because you’re not worth it
The Health and Safety Executive recommended no new right for safety
reps, not because they couldn’t prove they would save lives,
but because they couldn’t prove they would save money.
HSE’s paper to the 15 March HSC meeting said: “Our
Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) estimated the total annual cost
of the two changes to the law at £2.9-£4.2m, while benefits
were £0.3m.” It added “respondents did not produce
information to show that the benefits of legislative change –
even on the relatively small scale proposed – would outweigh
the costs. In spite of the question expressly seeking such evidence,
there was no substantive additional information in reply.”
HSE’s own calculation, however, had attracted widespread
ridicule for being an exercise in back-of-an-envelope economics.
Usdaw described it as “a joke”, GMB as “bearing
no relation to reality or the facts” and UNISON as evidence
“HSE seems to have made up its mind already” (Hazards
97).
There is a strong, government accepted, argument that union safety
reps do save both lives and money. DTI’s January 2007 consultation
document on workplace representatives reported that at 2004 prices,
safety reps save society between £181m and £587m each
year though a lost time reduction from occupational injuries and
illnesses of between 286,000 and 616,000 days.
Comparing the upper and lower figures from HSE’s RIA and
the DTI document, the new rights would require only a marginal improvement
in this safety rep effect – possibly under 0.5 per cent and
no more than 2.3 per cent - to offset any costs. Even then, the
DTI figures are viewed by unions as a considerable under-estimate.
It is likely only miniscule improvements in safety rep performance
would more than offset the costs of new regulations.
DTI estimates that the safety rep role results in the prevention
of between 3,000 and 8,000 work-related illnesses each year. Some
of these will, presumably be chronic conditions that can kill –
cancer, heart disease and respiratory conditions, for example. With
just one occupational cancer death costed by Defra in a May 2006
paper at £2.46m, it would only take the prevention of a handful
of additional serious conditions to more than offset the costs of
greatly enhanced safety reps’ rights, far beyond the extremely
modest changes priced by HSE.
But the bigger question is this – should HSE be arguing against
health and safety improvements purely on cost grounds, and using
extremely shaky economics to boot? It was an approach used by the
Reagan administration in the US, where it attracted vicious criticism
from unions.
George Taylor, who used to head the safety department of the US
national union federation AFL-CIO and who died aged 95 in March,
was famously contemptuous of this approach. He said it was “an
arid exercise in controlling lives,” adding: “you don’t
make policy concerning human lives based on dollar costs.”
The union economist concluded: “If there is a reasonable belief
that a large number of people are going to be put at risk, you try
to prevent it. You don’t wait until you can count the last
pair of lungs on the dissecting table.”
HSC news release. Worker Involvement: results of the consultation
exercise and a proposed approach to current and future work,
HSE paper to the HSC meeting, 15 March 2007 [pdf].
Workplace representatives: A review of their facilities and
facility time, DTI, January 2007. more
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Wrong headed HSC
Bill Callaghan, who receives a salary as HSC chair of over £108,800
for a four day week to be the public face of HSC as a whole, waited just
six days to put his own personal views on the consultation issue. In a
21 March public lecture, he sidestepped the views of respondents to the
consultation. “My view is that informal regulation via unions and
employers will be more efficient and less onerous than regulation imposed
externally, either by HSE or through the courts,” he said.
Privately, unions are deeply frustrated with the tripartite HSC’s
failure to reflect the findings of the consultation in new policy. Publicly,
the anger has centred on HSE for recommending inaction in the first place.
Bob Blackman, TGWU national secretary for construction, said it seemed
that “if you're an employer your voice will be heard but if you're
a trade union putting forward carefully crafted arguments you will be
ignored.” He added: “These are harsh words for the HSE but
when they ignore the 91 per cent who backed a duty to consult safety reps
and the 96 per cent said there should be a duty to respond to representations
from safety reps what else are we supposed to think?”
Rob Miguel, Amicus health and safety officer, said the decision was “embarrassing”
and “a slap in the face for safety reps”. He added: “It
is an outrage that genuine consultation was literally being ignored. As
well as overwhelming trade union support for changes in the consultation,
72 per cent of employers were also in favour of a duty to respond to representations
from safety reps.”
Amicus – which merged with TGWU on 1 May to form Unite, Britain’s
largest union – said it is also angry that the HSE paper failed
to address the lack of enforcement of safety reps’ existing rights
and other safety rules, despite evidence of this given during consultation.
It has written to HSE asking it to reconsider its position.
The unions have been backed by Bolton North-east MP David Crausby. He
said HSE’s recommendation “is an incredibly embarrassing decision,
in the light of such an overwhelming response in favour from the consultation.
This change would have given health and safety reps real teeth, but it
seems HSE has caved in to the CBI and the EEF.”
Amicus has called for complaints about the HSE recommendations to be
made directly to HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger. A statement said:
“What is most insulting is the slap in the face to safety reps,
who each day make it their life to improve the working environment, helping
work colleagues and their employers to ensure people go home safe. “Employers
themselves recognise this fact, and the majority have shown their support
in their response; it seems the HSE is willing to chance slapping them
in the face as well.”
The Amicus stance was supported by the national Hazards Campaign. Spokesperson
Hilda Palmer urged “all safety reps and organisations concerned
with health and safety to read the paper and make appropriate complaints
to the chief executive of the HSE, Geoffrey Podger, as the paper is an
appalling travesty of the facts and damages their credibility.”
Unite calls for action on enforcement
A dramatic increase in workplace deaths shows the need for more
resources for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and a reversal
in the downward trend in enforcement, Britain’s biggest union
has said. Unite, the union formed in May from the merger of TGWU
and Amicus, made the call after latest provisional figures showed
workplace fatalities in the construction industry increased last
year by over 30 per cent.
Unite is concerned that this and enforcement trends – a 27
April 2007 report for construction union UCATT has claimed that
the proportion of deaths in the sector that were followed by a prosecution
had fallen by nearly threequarters in the period from 1998 to 2004
– show the safety watchdog is increasingly reluctant to take
the necessary enforcement action after criminal safety breaches.
HSE challenged the findings of the UCATT report when the story
was picked up the BBC Radio 4’s flagship Today programme,
saying in a comment released to the press there was only a “possible
10-15 per cent rise in fatal accidents”, later defending this
figure when challenged by Hazards magazine. However, HSE
later conceded its own estimate was wrong and amended the press
release online to say there was a “possible 20-25 per cent
risk in fatal accidents” in the construction sector, although
the revised figures were not distributed to HSE’s press list.
Amicus and the Centre for Corporate Accountability, which prepared
the report for UCATT, criticised HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger’s
defence of his organisation’s enforcement record, which included
a statement that “this is not a police state”. They
point out that his own memo last year commenting on the findings
of an internal HSE audit conceded enforcement rates should be “considerably
greater” and warned that “the implications of this need
to concern us all” (Hazards 96).
Rob Miguel, health and safety officer with Unite’s Amicus
section, said: “It seems though that HSE has written off over
half those devastated families within these figures. For many years
we have campaigned for increased enforcement for health and safety
breaches, and despite HSE worries about a police state, they are
more than concerned over the lack of enforcement themselves.”
CCA
news release including text of the HSE internal memo •
HSE
news release • CCA/UCATT report [pdf]
•
Hazards HSE
is broke feature which first revealed HSE chief executive Geoffrey
Podger’s concern about the prosecutions shortfall.
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Help wanted
Unions contend that safety reps can play a vital role policing workplace
safety standards, something accepted is the DTI paper (Hazards
97). They say expending that role through better consultation and new
rights – roving reps, serving provisional improvement notices -
would be a low cost, high impact way of complementing the HSE role.
HSE has never been in greater need of help. An austerity programme has
seen it institute a ‘How and where we work’ review, which
looks set to result in office closures nationwide, with tentative plans
to relocate most of HSE’s London HQ staff outside the capital. An
HSE board decision has already been taken to close HSE’s National
Agriculture Centre – without any consultation with HSE unions, staff
or farming unions or employers. HSE chief executive Geoffrey Podger apologised
to unions for the failure to consult, but the closure is to go ahead anyway.
An HSE job reduction programme, which aims to shed up to 350 staff over
two years (Hazards 96) is continuing, with Geoffrey Podger telling
staff on 22 March: “It remains essential that we continue with the
planned reductions in post through natural wastage in HSE.”
In January, HSE inspectors’ union Prospect warned that HSE’s
Corporate Medical Unit has lost so many doctors and nurses it could no
longer operate effectively (Hazards 97). With provisional statistics
suggesting workplace fatalities in 2006/07 could hit a five year high
(page 9), and with construction deaths for the year up by almost a third,
Prospect says HSE does not have the resources to enforce new laws.
Mark Serwotka, general secretary of PCS, one of the HSE unions, said
the provisional deaths figure “should be a wake up call to the government
who should be investing in safety rather than crude cost cutting.”
He added: “Cutting jobs and resources leads to fewer inspections
which in turn results in tragic consequences.”
Neil Hope-Collins, chair of Prospect’s HSE branch, said; “HSE
has suffered year-on-year real term cuts since 2002 with recent constraints
on funding resulting in the need to cut over 280 jobs by next year. These
dramatic cuts are required to remain within existing funding limits.”
He added if the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) “chooses
to impose its 15 per cent efficiency savings at the cost of health and
safety, then even more jobs will be lost from 2008 to 2011” and
could “decimate frontline services.”
Prospect negotiator Mike MacDonald added: “The government's refusal
to back the call for proper resources for inspection and accident investigation
ignores the stack of evidence that enforcing the law is the most effective
motivator for business to improve health and safety standards.”
He added: “In addition to the families devastated by the rise in
construction site fatalities, there are numerous other lives wrecked by
horrendous injuries at work who will never get justice because the cutbacks
have resulted in a restriction of the accident selection criteria used
to prompt an investigation.”
So, who will enforce workplace safety?
The holes in the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) enforcement
cover are becoming increasingly apparent.
HSE union Prospect welcomed the new construction, design and management
regulations which took effect on 6 April, for example, but raised
serious questions about the resource-depleted watchdog’s ability
to enforce the new rules. It said HSE, the body responsible for
inspecting workplaces, is already reeling from massive job cuts
and faces a further drive to find 15 per cent cost savings over
the next three years.
Neil Hope-Collins, chair of Prospect’s HSE branch, said “you
have to ask who will enforce the new regulations?” He added
that further “efficiency” measures by DWP could mean
more long-term job losses, saying “this drive for savings
means that HSE’s construction division alone faces a 10 per
cent drop in its share of allocated resources for next year, even
before the DWP’s efficiency savings are factored in, and that
picture is reflected across the organisation.”
Alan Ritchie, general secretary of construction union UCATT, said:
“The lives of building workers cannot be reduced to a financial
cost. The government must reverse these cuts and put extra resources
into ensuring that this inherently dangerous industry is made safer.”
The new law requires greater safety coordination between all employers
on a construction site.
Retail union Usdaw has written to HSE slamming plans to scrap one
of just two inspectors responsible for developing national safety
policies in the food and agriculture sector. The food manufacturing
sector has a high accident rate but budget cuts at HSE have led
it to axe one of the inspectors working with trade union and employer
organisations to develop safe working initiatives.
“Usdaw is saying loud and clear this is very short-sighted
decision especially when the two inspectors have played key roles
in reducing accidents in the food sector by 37 per cent,”
said Usdaw national officer Bill Snell. |
REAL LIFE Scaffolder
Ralph “Barney” Kennedy was electrocuted while working
on a London council estate in September 2006. His death was one
of the 78 construction deaths in 2006/07, a year that saw a 32 per
cent surge in site fatalities. The Construction Safety Campaign
(CSC) joined family members including Barney’s partner, Kelly,
(centre) outside an April inquest into his death. CSC secretary
Tony O’Brien said construction’s poor safety record
“will not change until the government reverses its deregulatory
programme and puts much more resources into the enforcement of our
safety laws”. He added it must introduce “corporate
manslaughter laws that will actually jail negligent employers.”
The inquest returned an open verdict. |
Hey Stop Enforcing
The top dog at the UK’s workplace safety
watchdog has said flexibility and partnership are its new watch
words – but has downplayed the Health and Safety Executive’s
enforcement role. Geoffrey Podger, chief executive of HSE, told
the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) conference
on 28 March: “Partnership is one of our key strategic themes.
And is it not the case that when a number of organisations come
together to work towards shared goals, they are far more effective
than one operating alone?”
The HSE boss added the enforcement agency is
working very closely with local authorities, and other organisations
such as the Institute of Directors (IoD) to achieve mutual objectives.
He said through forthcoming guidance on directors’ responsibilities
for health and safety prepared by IoD, HSE with the IoD is reaching
out to boards and directors to secure their commitment to ensure
successful health and safety performance.
Mr Podger’s speech made a brief nod to
inspection and enforcement – he said both “are very
important to us” and claimed after the recent dramatic decline
in enforcement activity HSE had “turned the tide as far as
both prosecutions and the serving of notices is concerned”
– but he provided no supporting data and the remainder of
his speech was overwhelmingly an argument for much greater self-regulation.
He added: “If we are going to ensure
the world of work is as safe and as sustainable as possible, then
we need to be flexible enough to respond effectively to the challenges
as they arise.”
His comments are likely to interest unions
and safety campaigners. They have repeatedly warned that voluntary
measures and partnership have a role, but not at the expense of
enforcement and proper legal duties on company bosses. Unions have
also been seeking explicit legal safety duties on company directors.
HSE prosecutions, convictions, inspections, workplace visits, improvement
notices and prohibition notices have all fallen dramatically in
recent years (Hazards 95).
HSE’s claim that its strategy is working
was dealt a serious blow in March when it was revealed there had
been a dramatic increase in workplace fatalities.
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