The UK Government has been urged to ensure worker health and safety rights are not “watered down”.
The warning comes from the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH) in a letter to Government ministers in which it sets out a series of recommendations which it believes can help “unlock Britain’s potential”.
It has since been announced that the Government plans to widen exemptions for businesses from certain regulations and reporting requirements.
In the letter, IOSH highlights the “landmark decision” taken by the International Labour Organization (ILO) this June to include ‘a safe and healthy working environment’ among its fundamental principles and rights at work. IOSH calls for action to ensure the UK respects and promotes the right so the benefits of this decision can be realised and, importantly, that the UK continues to demonstrate commitment, positive action and continual improvement toward workers’ health and safety.
The letters, jointly signed by IOSH Chief Executive Vanessa Harwood-Whitcher and Head of Health and Safety Ruth Wilkinson, say: “We must all take action. This must be universally recognised, inspiring us to renew and act on our shared responsibility to tackle poor working conditions, ill treatment at work and poor health and safety practice.
“We shouldn’t stop there. We must all do more to respond to the structural and emerging issues affecting the world of work. We must all guard against the risks of watering down well-established occupational safety and health rights. This is why the UK Government must elevate occupational safety and health as a fundamental human right, making it a foundation of sustainable development and decent work.”
The letters go on to highlight that the UK has ratified fewer than one in five of the ILO’s conventions relating to occupational safety and health.
IOSH calls for this to be addressed and for the ratification of Convention 155, on occupational safety and health, to be accelerated. It also urges the Government to ratify conventions on occupational health services, asbestos, occupational cancer, chemicals and major industrial accidents.
IOSH also says there is a “great opportunity” to modify current trade agreements and “align them to the amended declaration”.
The letter adds: “If the UK aspires to be a more socially responsible trade system, the effectiveness of occupational safety and health provisions in these and future agreements needs to be improved. IOSH has long argued for greater public policy efforts to be geared towards worker-centred trade policies and systems, so we hope to see positive progress on this over the next few years.
“We hope that our recommendations can be supported by the Government. Putting these into practice can go a long way to unlocking Britain’s potential.”
IOSH/ILO must be losing the plot. Not only are our ‘rights’ enshrined in law/case law, but the right to a safe and healthy workplace is already integrated into the principles and requirements of the Management Regs, Workplace Regs, and the Health and Safety at Work Act, which is to say nothing of the CDM Regulations, and of course, will be part of any organisation’s OH&SMS if they are working to ISO45001. We often hear this same statement from these organisations, or something akin to it, every time we have a change of government to Tories, or a new Tory PM,… Read more »
There is a Bill currently before Parliament that if it becomes law destroys all the regulations which came from the EU, including COSHH, Vibration, Noise, Management, CDM, Workplace, PUWER, Working Time, Manual Handling with effect from 31 December 2023 unless new regulations are passed to retain them (which could water them down). This will give the government the opportunity to change health and safety regulations that are unpopular with employers. As the government has a large majority in the House of Commons this Bill is likely to become law unless bodies like IOSH make it clear that it will be… Read more »
The way this country is heading we’ll be seeing 8&9 year olds working in factories.
The UK has already watered down Environmetnal Regulations and Food Safety Regulations so why should health and safety be spared? This is part of the de-regulation and brexit plan that the Tory Government have. I feel genuinely sorry for all those in UK who have worked for excellent health and safety laws and practices for years both inside and outside IOSH. I feel you will lose it all and looking across from Ireland, we are genuinely saddened by this.
I agree HSE legislation should be appropriate for the risks workers may be exposed to. Quite interesting when you look at fatality statistics for the UK and EU. It must be amazing to all the British detractors, that the UK comes out very well. Brexit was a democratic vote to exit from the EU, which in my opinion,is not a democratic organisation. We can never be complacent. A fatality at work effects many people, family, work colleagues and friends, to name but a few. The following is from https://www.hse.gov.uk/statistics/european/ P 20 Taking employment levels into account, the 123 worker fatalities… Read more »