Breaking News:
A woman has been pulled alive from the rubble of the building in Dhaka, which this article details, 17 days after the building collapse.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22477414
May 2013 Health and Safety Legal Update:
This Months article goes into detail about an incident that recently happened in Dhaka, Bangladesh, when a large building with around 3000 people in collapsed, killing around 1,000 people. Although at first glance it appears not to be really related to UK Health and Safety but on further inspection the people of Bangladesh are asking themselves the same questions as we were less than a century ago, when similar scale accidents were commonplace here in Britain.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-22450419
A serious fire in another clothing factory building in Dhaka, kills 8.
Bangladesh Factory Collapse:
Primark is one of the big names, who still bought clothing from that factory, Matalan had recently stopped using one of the companies who worked from this building to supply some of it's clothing. Primark and Matalan have already made an offer of financial assistance to the relatives of those killed and injured. No doubt their companies will suffer financially in the UK as a result of their connection to the factory. The financial support offer is probably as much about Public Relations, as it is to do any feelings of moral obligation by the companies. BP's share price plummeted $1 Billion shortly after the 2010 gulf of Mexico "Deepwater Horizon" oil spillage, with $ Millions of lost fuel sales and shows environmental, health and safety complacency is not limited to just developing countries.
Demonstrations have been taking place in Dhaka demanding improved health and safety standards. Some protesters are asking for the death penalty for the building owner, who allegedly made workers go back into the building, even though large cracks had started to open up in the building.
Building regulations in addition to Health and Safety Laws help protect British workers from such accidents. Anyone who has been involved with any large or small construction project, can tell you how frustrating the building regulations are but they are there for very good reason and came in to force in the UK soon after the Great Fire of London in 1666. Even today a large consideration for fire safety is included in the building regulations.
Building regulations were reported to have been used in the building in Dhaka that this article is detailing but allegedly three more floors were added by the owner, without going through the proper building regulation process or obtaining advice from civil engineers on strengthening of the lower floors.
At first glance it does not appear that this incident Dhaka really has any connection to us apart from the few UK's families who's family members were in the or near the building at the time of the collapse.
I think that this accident should make us think about what we have in the UK and what would have happened, if such an incident happened over here.
Up to the 1970's, large industrial accidents in the UK were quite common. Mining accidents often involved large numbers of workers and happened usually at least once a year or more often, if you were unlucky. A large train crash with many casualties was almost an annual tragic event. Road traffic fatalities were running at over 8,500 per year (in 1942) with just over a million cars on the roads, over 4 times that of now, around 2,000 deaths in 2012 with over 30 million cars on the road in the UK (see table below.) All these statistics are improving due to advances in technology and more stringent adherence to safety standards.
Some industrial accidents particularly during the Second World War were covered up by the Government, for fear of it affecting the morale of the country. One explosion in a munitions factory in Swynnerton, Staffordshire killed 5 people and was completely covered up until after the war was over.
http://www.itv.com/news/central/2012-11-09/war-heroines-remembered-for-first-time/
The Gresford colliery disaster was one of the worst 266 men and boys were killed in one accident in the coal mine on 22nd September 1934.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gresford_Disaster
When I first heard about this disaster, when I was doing my health and safety training, I was shocked by the numbers of people who were killed. These accidents were almost accepted by the mining community, as a price we had to pay to mine coal.
In 1949 a relatively small accident again in a coal mine in which a man called Mr. Edwards was killed when a tunnel in a mine collapsed changed health and safety law in the UK for ever. This lead to a legal test case called "Edwards Vs. National Coal Board." I doubt at the time whether anyone knew the significance of it and how it would impact upon health and safety laws in the UK. This test case defined the meaning the term "Reasonably Practicable."
The Coal Board argued that it was not "Reasonably Practicable" to shore up every single tunnel in every single coal mine across the UK, it would cost them millions of pounds. The court disagreed. They basically said that if a tunnel was likely to collapse at some point in time the potential severity was so great (usually single or multiple fatalities!) then the tunnel must be shored up regardless of cost. If the tunnel was never likely to collapse because of it's structure and composition, then shoring was not required. Essentially "Reasonably Practicabliity" requires computation of risk or "a mental risk assessment" to be completed. If the combined computation of likelihood and severity is high, the resource that should be allocated in terms of cost, trouble and time, must be potential unlimited.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v_National_Coal_Board
In 1974 the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, incorporated the term "Reasonably Practicable" for the first time in an Act of Parliament. All regulations and Approved Codes of Practice issued under the Act since are based on this simple term, which essential requires us to balance the level of risk against the cost or resource required to control the risk. High risk requires potentially high level of resource or cost, low risk requires relatively low resource and insignificant risk needs no resource or money to be spent at all!
When the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1992 came into force this was the first time that a written "risk assessment" completed, for any task with "significant risk," by a "competent person" was stipulated as a legal requirement, although many legal test cases had required it. These regulations were further revised in 1999.
Unfortunately the same downward trend in statistics cannot be said for Asbestos related illness in the UK. Currently over 4,000 people a year are confirmed to have died from Asbestos related conditions. Around 2,300 of these die from an incurable form of lung cancer called mesothelioma, which has only one known cause, exposure to Asbestos. This is one of the reasons for the HSE's and other health and safety organisations recent re-emphasis on putting work related health issues at the same priority as safety issues.
Lastly there are three main reasons for implementing a robust health and safety management system, even during hard financial times:
1/ Moral- In the UK around 170 workers killed per year, around 400 members of the public killed in work related incidents and 4,000 deaths from Asbestos related illnesses, how many deaths are acceptable? In mind my ideally none, particularly if one of them is your loved one!
2/ Legal- with increasingly stringent enforcement of existing health and safety laws, even more and more companies are being prosecuted or subject to other enforcement action such as improvement notices and prohibition notices.
3/ Economic- OK some costs associated with accidents are insurable but there are many costs which companies don't consider, policy excesses, increased premiums, solicitors fees, lost custom, paying managers to deal with enforcement authorities, the price of bad publicity (like Primark, Matalan and BP above!) The rule of thumb is for every £1 which you are insured for, roughly £8- £36 you aren't!!! The new fee for intervention scheme is also adding to the burden and is essentially a tax on poor H&S performance.
My question is, can you afford not to do health and safety properly these days????