date: 10 October 2003 embargo: 00.01hrs Monday 13 October 2003

Attention: industrial and health correspondents, health and safety media, planning desks

Unions to plot ESCAPE routes from dangerous substances

Of the 2.3 million workers in the UK made ill by their jobs, around a quarter of them (575,000) can blame their illnesses on exposure to dangerous substances at work.

To highlight the start of the European Week of Safety and Health today (Monday) and warn of the hazards that asbestos, latex, and other toxic chemicals and dusts can pose at work, the TUC is urging union safety reps to keep up the pressure on employers to make UK workplaces safer.

With dangerous substances the theme for this year’s European Week, the TUC is promoting a new ESCAPE route to help workers steer their employers safely away from processes and materials that put employees’ health at risk. Exposure to dangerous substances can lead to a whole host of problems including asthma, dermatitis, cancer, and birth defects.

During the coming week, union safety reps are being urged by the TUC to keep the six point ESCAPE route in mind when raising safety issues relating to the use of dangerous substances with their employers:

• E stands for Elimination - finding ways of reducing risk by changing the way toxic materials are used;

• S is for Substitution - swapping the dangerous substance for something altogether safer;

• C is for Control - if neither elimination or substitution are possible, then the hazardous material must be enclosed, with any emissions dealt with properly, and protective equipment always used;

• A, P and E stand for And Prevent Exposure to as many of the workforce as possible.

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: 'If employers begin to follow the TUC ESCAPE route, they can help stop today’s workers developing tomorrow’s illnesses and diseases. Work is killing several thousand people every year, and making thousands more very ill. We must put a stop to this annual roll call of death and disease, and raising employer awareness this week is a good way to start.

'Everyone pays the price for poor health and safety. The unsafe use of dangerous substances causes death, disease and pain for workers and their families, and companies also lose out in terms of reduced productivity, and costly compensation claims from victims.

Official government statistics suggest that every year around 1,600 workers suffer chemical poisoning, and biological agents infect 700 employees. Another 66,000 suffer from a work-related skin disease, 7,000 people contract occupational asthma and 6,000 workers die from cancers caused by their jobs (half of these as a result of past exposures to asbestos).

During the European Week of Safety and Health, unions will be hosting a wide variety of activities including, on Wednesday, a national asbestos inspection day, with safety reps being asked to put five key questions to their employers regarding the location of any fatal fibres in their workplace.

Notes to Editors:

The European Week of Safety and Health is an annual event aimed at making Europe a safe and healthy place to work. It has become Europe’s largest workplace safety event and is promoted across Europe by the European Agency for Safety and Health and across the UK by the Health and Safety Executive.

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Contacts:

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

Press release (700 words) issued 13 Oct 2003