More than 20,000 UK staff are killed prematurely through their work each year, while 1.2 million are suffering from work-related illnesses ranging from musculoskeletal disorders such as back pain to mental health problems such as depression.
These are the findings of research undertaken by union umbrella organisation the TUC, which revealed that the equivalent of the entire population of the Orkney Islands die as a result of their work each year from conditions including occupational cancer, exposure to fumes and chemicals and fatal traffic accidents.
The study entitled ‘The Case for Health and Safety’ also indicated that the number of annual workplace injuries is higher that current Health and Safety Executive (HSE) estimates of 246,000 because many accidents go unreported or are not reported correctly.
While the number of fatalities and injuries at work was falling and the nature of the workplace was changing, the problem had not gone away and employees still faced a range of dangerous hazards, diseases and illnesses, the report said.
As a result, the TUC called on the government to appoint a health and safety tsar and to ignore lobbying to reduce regulation and enforcement activity in the area.
TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: “Regulation works, as long as it is enforced, and it saves lives and prevents the contraction of unnecessary illnesses. That is why the UK continues to need strong regulation and enforcement.”
Every one of the 20,000 annual workplace-related deaths could have been avoided and if current levels of HSE and local authority funding in this area were cut, the effects could be even more “catastrophic”, he warned.
