Saturday, January 03, 2009

“Injury in the name of profit is not acceptable”

Back to “The Smoke” after the Holiday. The boredom of driving long distances over the holiday period to visit friends and families was alleviated by listening to Radio 4’s ‘end of the year’ programmes. They revisited many of their key stories and yesterday, I listened to most of “Face the Facts” with John Waite (photo right). There was the horrific story of caravan park owners who tried to frighten elderly residents into selling their vans to them for peanuts by fire bombing! There is a loop in the law that gives such residents the least amount of legal protection of any tenure.

Another story looked at how seemingly ‘respectable’ companies break the law by demanding employees are CRB (Criminal Records Bureau) checked when they are only legally able to do so with adults who work with children or vulnerable children (and certain specific occupations such as solicitors and accountants). This issue has also arisen in my branch, with some housing associations carrying out CRB blanket checks of all employees, regardless of whether of not they work with children and vulnerable adults. Must add this one to my “do something about it” list for 2009.

This radio programme is also credited with helping to bring about a public enquiry into the Stockline Plastic Factory Explosion which killed 9 workers in 2004. There seems to have been a sad tale of an inadequate safety culture in the factory before the explosion and insufficient Health & Safety Executive (HSE) regulation. The deaths probably could have been avoided with a few hundred pounds worth of preventative maintenance. The company was only fined £400,000 for the 9 deaths. One positive result (if ‘positive’ is the right word to be used in such circumstances) is that currently companies which breach health & safety laws are assessed for fines by the courts on the basis of financial information submitted by that company. Dr Bill Wilson MSP (whose quote is the title of this post) is trying to pass a bill that would ensure that such companies have an independent assessment of their finances.

No comments: