TUC warns that workplace health and safety is ‘getting worse’
The Trades’ Union Congress (TUC) has warned that the UK’s safety record appears to be getting worse, and that a ‘hostile’ climate to health and safety issues could be to blame.
The TUC has said that fewer visits and inspections are being made to workplaces by inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), and that local authority safety inspection teams are also having to make do with “substantially reduced” funding following government budget cuts. This is despite the fact that recent figures showing that workplace deaths have increased.
The general secretary of the TUC, Frances O’Grady, said:
“The Government seems determined to water down health and safety laws despite recent increases in workplace fatalities.
“It seems incredible that ministers seem unconcerned by the cut in the number of workplace inspections at a time when more people are dying and getting injured at work.”
The TUC believes that unless there is an increase in health and safety law enforcement in workplaces, relating to serious health and safety breaches, lax practices and poor standards of health and safety training, the upward trend in workplace fatalities will not be reversed.