Health and safety regulation

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.13169/instemplrighj.3.1.0084
• Published date: 01 January 2020
• Date: 01 January 2020
• Pages: 84-93

Health and safety regulation

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Introduction

Too many workers and their families continue to suffer from the failure of

their employing organisations to provide safe and healthy working condi-

tions. Injuries, acute and chronic ill-health and death occur all too frequently,

along with the emotional and financial costs they cause. Yet employing

organisations are rarely held accountable for these outcomes. In fact, accord-

ing to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the vast majority of the

associated costs are borne by those harmed and their families, and by the

taxpayer through the costs of paying benefits and providing health care.

It is also clear that the risks faced by workers vary not only in relation to the

type of work they do but on what basis they do it. Temporary workers and

those deemed to be self-employed are, for example, significantly more likely

tosufferinjuries.Indeed, whiletheself-employedconstitute around15%of

employment,HSE figures indicate that they account for 30% of workplace

fatalities. Those working in micro and small enterprises (MSEs) have similarly

been found to experience proportionally greater serious injuries and fatali-

ties than those working in larger enterprises. Furthermore, evidence suggests

that this in part stems from how large, powerful purchasing organisations can

undermine health and safety standards in their (often smaller) suppliers

through the price and delivery demands they impose.

To add insult to injury, current government policy, in failing to comply with

relevant ILO commitments, exempts from inspection workplaces in which

millions of workers earn their living by arbitrarily deeming them to be ‘low-

risk’ (for example docks). This means that some workers are more equal than

others when it comes to the likelihood of their employer being held account-

able for a failure to comply with their legal duties. Meanwhile, employing

organisations are operating under less and less external oversight as the

numbers of HSE and local authority inspectors have fallen and all forms of

enforcement action have declined. This is neither acceptable nor inevitable.

Changes to the current framework for health and safety could therefore alter

it radically. All that is needed is the political will to take the necessary action.

Without doubt the changes we propose to the legal status of workers

in the chapter on the employment relationship and our proposals for the

Health and safety regulation