The TUC is joining with the Campaign for Corporate Accountability (CCA) to launch a new campaign to improve workplace safety standards by getting tougher on law enforcement and corporate accountability, including new laws and more resources for the Health and Safety Executive and local authorities . The new campaign will, for the first time, bring trade unions, safety organisations and bereaved families (from both work-related deaths and disasters) into a coalition demanding government action on a core set of safety demands.

At the launch, TUC General Secretary John Monks will join relatives of victims to unveil a map revealing, region by region, where 2,286 people have been killed at work over the last five years. A new document to be released at the launch will set out a series of specific proposals to end this catalogue of death, as well as serious work-related injuries and illness.

Some of the measures being called for by he TUC and the Centre for Corporate Accountability are:

· legally binding safety duties upon individual company directors;

· a new law on corporate killing;

· a substantial increase in the number of health and safety inspectors;

· giving union safety representatives the power to serve provisional improvement notices;

· the abolition of crown and Parliamentary immunity from prosecution under health and safety law;

· higher fines and more innovative penalties for breaches of health and safety law;

· courts to have the option of imprisoning company directors and managers convicted of any health and safety offence; and

· a tougher prosecution policy, particularly in relation to the conduct of Directors.

TUC General Secretary John Monks said:

" A strong framework of laws is the hallmark of a civilised society, and nowhere more than in health and safety. Two hundred years after the first health and safety law was introduced in Britain, we need those laws more than ever to protect the vulnerable and prevent cowboys from dragging health and safety standards down to the lowest or cheapest level.

"Health and safety is a mix of advice and enforcement. Unions and employers working in partnership can do so much better than the law lays down, but we don't want anyone to get away with less, because that means more deaths, injuries and illnesses. Deaths at work are always an emotive subject and no employer wants to be tarred with the brush of criminality - but enforcement can't be designed only with good, honest employers trying to do their best in mind - it needs to catch the cowboys and the criminals.

"Working people want justice and protection, and unions want a Safety Bill and a new law on corporate killing that will deliver both objectives, as soon as possible."

David Bergman , Executive Director of the Centre for Corporate Accountability said:

'It is time for the Government to take action that will improve work-place health and safety, increase law enforcement and promote corporate accountability. Significant reforms in law and policy are necessary to ensure that dangerous companies are made safe and that those companies and directors who negligently or recklessly cause death, injury or disease or who place others at unacceptable risks are held to account.'

Speakers at the launch will include:

· John Monks, TUC General Secretary;

· George Brumwell, General Secretary of the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians;

· David Bergman , Executive Director of the Centre for Corporate Accountability (Chair);

· Anne Jones

Mother of 24 year old Simon Jones who was killed in April 1998 on his first day at work at Shoreham Docks in Brighton. She fought for three years to force the CPS to prosecute Euromin Ltd and its General Manager for Simon's manslaughter. They were both finally acquitted in November last year. The company was fined. She is also a Board member of the Centre for Corporate Accountability;

· Maureen Kavanagh

Her 29 year old son, Peter was killed in the Southall disaster. She is a member of Disaster Action and is a founding member of the Safety on Trains Action Group.

Also present at the launch will be families bereaved from work-related deaths and disasters. These include:

Tom Byrne

His 12 year old Gerard was killed in June 1999, when a lorry reversed out of an animal feed company in Congleton, Cheshire without a banksman. In July 2001, HJ Lea Oakes, Oakes Millers Ltd, and Michael Jepson (a director of both companies) stood trial for manslaughter. All the defendants were acquitted of manslaughter but the two companies were fined a total of £50,000 for health and safety offences;

Linda Di Lieto

Her 24 year old son, Sam, was killed in the Ladbroke Grove Disaster;

Sarah Jones

Her 47 year old brother, Howard Jones, a heavy goods vehicle driver, was crushed to death in May 2001 by a fork-lift truck whilst loading paper rolls at Bridgewater Paper Company Ltd in Ellsmere Port. The papers relating to the investigation are currently with the Crown Prosecution Service;

Beverley Knight

Her 56 year old husband Brian, a steel erector for the company William Hare was killed in April 1998 when he fell from the Imperial War Museum. In May 1999, an inquest jury at Southwark Coroners Court returned a verdict of ‘unlawful killing’. In December 2001, however, the Crown Prosecution Service decided not to prosecute any individual or company for manslaughter and the HSE is now considering whether to press health and safety charges;

Helen Koffler

Her 30 year old brother Frank O'Toole was killed in November 1999 when pallets of cardboard fell of a lorry whilst he was driving past on his motorbike. Express Corrugated Cases Limited of High Wycombe was convicted of health and safety offences and fined £10,000;

Diana Macaulay

Her 26 year old son Matthew was killed in the Ladbroke Grove Disaster;

George Stewart

His 24 year old son Paul was killed on 8 September 1999 when a gantry collapsed on the Avonmouth Bridge throwing him and three other men to the ground below. In December 2001, Costain Ltd and Yarm Road Ltd (formerly Kvaerner Cleveland Bridge Ltd) were fined £250,000 each after pleading guilty to health and safety offences;

Kevin Walsh

His brother, 43 year old Shaughn, a construction worker, was killed in April 2000 when a house in Hull collapsed killing him and two other men. In November 2001, the Crown Prosecution Service announced that they were not going to prosecute Marketing Exchange for Africa Ltd or any of its directors for manslaughter. The HSE is now considering whether to press health and safety charges;

Ailsa Raisin-Shaw and sons Oliver, Jonathan and William

Their 61 year old husband and father John Raisin was killed in the Ladbroke Grove Disaster.

The safety organizations involved in the campaign include: Disaster Action (which consists of survivors and the bereaved from all the recent major disasters in Britain including the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise, the Kings Cross fire, the Clapham Junction train crash, the Piper Alpha explosion, the Hillsborough disaster and the Southall and Paddington train crashes) , Safety on Trains Action Group (set up by families of those involved in the Southall train disaster) , Hazards campaign (which represents all the health and safety advice centers in Britain) , Construction Safety Campaign, INQUEST, Pesticide Action Network (UK), the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign and the United Friends and Families Campaign.

The breakdown of deaths reported to the Health and Safety Executive between 1 Jan 97 to 31 Dec 01 is as follows:

REGION	TOTAL	EMPLOYED		PUBLIC
NORTH WEST	262	141	121
MIDLANDS	338	221	117
YORKSHIRE	192	115	77
WALES	148	91	57
SOUTH WEST	264	128	136
SOUTH EAST	276	162	114
SCOTLAND	263	191	72
NORTHERN	137	90	47
LONDON	213	123	90
EASTERN	193	88	105
TOTAL	2286	1350	936

MINI REGIONS
South Yorkshire	38	31	7
West Yorkshire	79	39	40
Tyneside	38	29	9
Teeside	30	21	9
Greater Manchester	93	56	37
Merseyside	40	26	14

CITIES
Birmingham	27	19	8
Bristol	28	12	16
Cardiff	14	10	4
Southampton	10	4	6
Glasgow	20	15	5

A regional map of these figures is attached to this email as a PDF file (which can be reproduced with the following credit: Eve Barker, http://www.hazards.org)
http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/deathmap.pdf

Contacts:

Media enquiries : Philip Taylor 020 7467 1310 or 07699 744115 (pager) or email ptaylor@tuc.org.uk

Other enquiries: Owen Tudor, Senior Health and Safety Policy Officer , TUC

020 7467 1325 or email otudor@tuc.org.uk