Regulating Health and Safety at Work: An Agenda for Change

by Phil James, David Walters

170 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Owain · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having broken my back as a result of health and safety failings at work I think I recognise the importance of health and safety at work more than many. This book deals the failings of companies and government legislation to protect workers. Some of the key themes the book deals with is how the existing health and safety infrastructure is geared at a workforce of the past, one that relied on a much higher level of trade union membership and representation in large workplaces that don't exist any more due to outscourcing and technological advances that mean certain types of work is either not carried out here any more, or carried out elsewhere. A large percentage of the British workforce is employed in small workplaces and generally has a far lower trade union membership than it did previously meaning many workers are left not having access to safety structures and information on employment rights that trade unions provide. This seems to me to be a direct result of neoliberalism's attack on trade unions (and essentially working people) that began with Thatcher's government several decades ago.

Published in 2005 the book is slightly out of date as since then, with the advent of another Conservative government, the neoliberal attack on workers' rights has increased markedly. I would like to read some more updated material on how health and safety is affected by zero-hour employment contracts. I know for a fact that since the Tories came to power the nature of the HSE has changed meaning it no longer has a duty to pre-emptively inspect workplaces and now can only inspect a workplace after a serious accident has occured.

Here is an article I wrote nearly a year ago about the subject:

http://yclbritain.wordpress.com/2014/...