Smoke and Mirrors

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Draft bills produced or promised immediately before general elections have a habit of disappearing. Where is the safety bill to give trade union safety reps extra powers and protection? The 2004 Queens Speech on 23rd November did finally propose a draft Bill to introduce a new crime of corporate manslaughter as promised to the trade unions in the weekend of negotiations at Warwick earlier this year. With political commentators predicting a general election in Spring 2005, does this mean we are any nearer to progress on this key demand for toughening up health and safety law?

Probably not.

Derek Simpson, General Secretary of AMICUS, which after its forthcoming mergers with GPMU and UNIFI, will be the largest TUC affiliate said this:

"A draft bill represents serious slippage in terms of time - we had expected a corporate manslaughter bill in the Parliament just gone or at least before the election. We are also concerned about speculation that senior directors accountability will only extend to fines. We know that the threat of prosecution and imprisonment is the main incentive for companies to improve their health and safety standards. This is what was agreed to at Warwick and we will not stop until companies are made accountable for their actions that result in deaths and injuries at work."

Dave Prentis of UNISON said he was concerned this bill (only a draft bill remember) will "fall off the agenda rather than be fast tracked through parliament."

The TUC's Brenden Barber even went so far as to express disappointment that the bill "doesn't threaten individual directors with the ultimate sanction of a jail sentence."

Government plans rejected by TUC! It may be wishful thinking, but at last the labour movement may be getting impatient with government failure to deliver on health and safety. At this year's TUC Congress in Brighton in September a unanimous vote rejected government de-regulatory plans on safety. The focus of the safety motion called for improvements to safety reps rights and rejected moves towards a softer enforcement regime. It called for the adoption of the strategy set out by the Work and Pensions Select Committee enquiry into the work of the Health and Safety Commission and the HSE published in July.

With the pantomime season approaching, where is John Prescott's Revitalising Health and Safety and its "tough" safety targets? In 2000, when it was published, a 10% reduction in fatal and major injuries was set as a target to be reached by 2010, with half of the improvement to be secured by 2004. In 2001 at the Construction Summit, called because of the embarrassing increase in deaths in the industry, an even more attention grabbing target of a 40% reduction in fatalities and major injuries in that industry was called for by 2004. Health and Safety Executive (HSE) statisticians' are now saying: "The rate of fatal injury to workers is at a similar level in 2003/04 as it was in the base year, 1999/2000. The rate rose in 2000/01, fell in the following two years, and then rose in 2003/04. HSE also say " there is no clear evidence of change in work-related ill health incidence since 1999/2000, the Revitalising base year"

Manifesto Trade union policies on health and safety have never made it into the Labour Party manifesto apart from the vaguest of commitments to corporate killing. In the run up to the general election we hope that safety reps give the government a hard time. Their safety performance is not nearly good enough.

• More at More delays for workplace death law
• And Corporate criminals at work

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