Date of article: 30/07/2007
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Any companies where workers are exposed to risk will need to take note as the new Act will introduce changes which mean that it will no longer be necessary to identify a "Countrolling Mind" before an organisation can be prosecuted.
In effect, according to the GMB's National Health and Safety Officer John McClean, this will mean the inclusion of larger organisations and employers in possible prosecution, whereas before the ones most likely to be brought before the courts were smaller employers.
However, Mr McClean went on, while the Bill was to be welcomed, the union feels that it does not go far enough in that individual directors and employers may still be able to evade prosecution for negligence which results in serious injuries and deaths.
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber agreed that this was a failing.
He stressed however that, even though unions wanted individual directors to be made personally liable for safety breaches and would have liked penalties against employers committing safety crimes to be tougher, the new law should mean the start of a change in the safety culture at the top of the UK's companies.
The catalogue of avoidable workplace deaths in recent years has highlighted the need for a change of attitude over safety in UK boardrooms, Mr Barber continued.
"To make a real difference, we now need to ensure that this law is accompanied by a new legal health and safety duty on directors and a requirement on companies to report annually on their workplace safety culture", he concluded.
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