A pressure group is urging Lord Young to take notice of its new DVD, which highlights how employers’ negligence in health and safety led to workers being killed, before he delivers the findings of his review.
Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) has released a DVD called Face the FACKS: the human cost of workplace killing, which claims that the justice system does not impose strong enough penalties on companies that have been found at fault for workplace fatalities.
The DVD interviews family members of workers who died as a result of workplace accidents. They each stress that workplace safety can only be achieved through good laws and strong enforcement. FACK is concerned however, that Lord Young’s review will recommend de-regulation, which it feels will condemn more workers to death.
Linzi Herbertson, whose husband Andy fell off incorrectly assembled scaffolding, says: “Lord Young’s offensive and callous statement that ‘People occasionally get killed at work, it’s unfortunate but its part of life’ is ignorant of the facts that most people killed by work are not killed in rare and unavoidable accidents but, like the members of our families, by employers breaking health and safety law.
“If Lord Young, David Cameron, or any other member of the Government condones such criminal behaviour that kills, maims and makes ill on such a vast scale, this is scandalous and we should all be very afraid of the lawless future.
“We urge Lord Young to watch our DVD ‘Face the FACKs: the human cost of workplace killing and then pleasantly surprise us with his report, as he said he would in a telephone conversation about his review on 5th July.
“If he fails to do this, we will hold him to account, and want to know why he can disregard the facts, the evidence and all the deaths caused by employers’ negligence at work.”
The DVD is on sale for £10 at http://www.hazardscampaign.org.uk/fack/resources/facethefacks.pdf
