date: 30 October 2002 embargo 00.01 hrs, Friday, 1 November 2002

Attention: Industrial correspondents, health and safety media, personnel media

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TUC wants global employers held accountable for two million work-related deaths a year

The TUC will today (Friday) launch a major campaign on realcorporate responsibility and accountability for health and safety at work, culminating in a global day of trade union action on Monday, 28 April 2003 - International Workers’ Memorial Day.

Every year, more people are killed at work around the world than in wars, or by AIDS - a total of two million a year according to the International Labour Organisation (the UN agency responsible for workplace issues).

Every year in Britain, about 300 workers are killed in their workplace; about a thousand die while driving for their work and thousands more die from occupational diseases. Asbestos-related diseases alone kill 5,000 workers a year.

Writing in the latest edition of the TUC-backed health and safety magazine Hazards, out on Saturday, 2 November, TUC’s Owen Tudor says:

'The issue of corporate social responsibility is an issue in both the developed and less developed economies. It has exploded in the US as an issue where corporate financial failings have been highlighted. Unions want to convey the same message about corporate behaviour on health and safety. Some people in the business community want to adopt policies on corporate social responsibility as a substitute for legislation. Where that goes beyond the legislative minimum, that's OK.

'But the international trade union movement now wants real corporate accountability, which means that employers who break the law should be treated like any other law breaker. And when they have killed someone who works for them, they should go to jail for it.'

Unions in Britain will be focusing on the case for a new law on corporate killing, which the TUC hopes will be included in the Queen’s Speech on 13 November, and on measures like recovery of NHS costs from employers who cause injuries or illness, on which the Department of Health is now consulting.

The campaign will build up over the next six months and will end with the annual International Workers’ Memorial Day which falls every year on 28 April. Union activists all over the world (including in six countries where the Day is an official national day) will take part in activity to draw attention to the need for employers to manage risks, protect their workers, and be held accountable if they fail.

In Britain, the TUC will be calling for:

tougher enforcement of health and safety laws and higher fines;

corporate killing legislation, and the extension of the possibility of a jail sentence for all breaches of health and safety law;

more powers for union safety reps to influence how health and safety is managed at their workplace; and

more inspectors to enforce the law.

Notes to Editors:

Hazards magazine is available at http://www.hazards.org/deadlybusiness and from Hazards magazine, PO Box 199, Sheffield, S1 4YL, England. Tel: 0114 267 8936 or email Rory O'Neill editor@hazards.org or Jawad Qasrawi sub@hazards.org

Details of last year’s activities are on the TUC website at http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-5355-f0.cfm along with a background paper on corporate responsibility which includes examples of campaigning issues from all five continents (http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/tuc-5495-f0.cfm).

All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

A series of TUC rights leaflets are available on our website and from the know your rights line 0870 600 4 882. Lines are open every day from 8am-10pm. Calls are charged at the national rate.

Contacts:

Media enquiries: Liz Chinchen on 020 7467 1248 or 07699 744115 (pager) or email lchinchen@tuc.org.uk

Other enquiries: Owen Tudor on 020 7467 1325 or 07788 715261 (mobile) or email otudor@tuc.org.uk

Press release (700 words) issued 1 Nov 2002