Between 2012 and 2014, 654 workers in Salford have suffered injuries at work, according to new figures released by the Government's Health and Safety Executive (HSE)*, the fourth highest rate in Greater Manchester.
The official statistics don't record all those killed on roads as part of work or made ill through work which would put the numbers much higher. While, during that period, Salford recorded no deaths at work, the Hazards Campaign states that the official figures `ignore all those dying from poor working conditions, so must not ever be used as a total of workers killed by work'.
Across Greater Manchester there were officially eleven workplace deaths and almost 7,000 injuries over the last two years, while the North West recorded 15 people who lost their lives at work and 9,432 who suffered injury in 2013-14 alone (see official stats here).
Responding to the figures, Hilda Palmer, Co-ordinator at Greater Manchester Hazards Centre (GMHC) and facilitator of Families Against Corporate Killers, puts the blame firmly on Prime Minister David Cameron...
"David Cameron responds to the Paris attacks which killed 16 people by saying money is no object to tackle terrorism" she says "Yet his response to the far greater number of preventable deaths, injuries and illness at work every year, is completely the opposite. Over four years, Cameron has waged an unrelenting attack on the protective H&S laws and their enforcement which keep workers safe and healthy.
"He has slashed HSE's budget by 44%, made a New Year's resolution to 'kill off health and safety culture'; blamed it for the riots and ' broken Britain'; called it 'an albatross, a millstone' around employers necks, and lied about good health and safety being useless red tape and a 'burden on business'" she adds "The families of the 15 people killed at work, the 9,432 inured and the 120,000 made ill, know only too painfully that the burden has fallen on them and it could have, and should have, been prevented.
"In the 21st Century Britain, one of the richest countries in the world, there is no excuse for such a terrible annual toll on workers which is even higher than the official HSE figures reveal" she argues "If terrorism took such a toll every year, imagine what would be said or done? In this General Election year, it is time for all parties to commit to investing in better regulation and enforcement of health and safety, to working with trade unions and workers to stop all this totally unnecessary suffering which will also be good for business and the economy....No-one should die, be injured or made ill, simply for going to work to earn a living for themselves and their family."
For further details see www.hazardscampaign.org.uk
• Official work-related injury figures for Salford show 331 in 2012-3 and 323 in 2013-14
• Workers Memorial Day is on 28th April this year
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