Everyone has the right to feel and be safe at work. That is not just an aspiration, it is a fundamental part of employment law, established by Labour Governments and by decades of campaigning by our trade unions.
It means employers have to ensure that risks to health and safety are properly controlled and it means workers are protected in disciplinary cases if they refuse to work over safety fears. Crucially, for the current crisis we are facing, it means bosses are failing in their duties to workers if they do not provide proper protective equipment.
The lack of PPE – caused in this case not by employers, but by the slow response of the Government to dealing with the coronavirus pandemic – has been particularly evident in the NHS and social care. But it is also affecting other key workers who are putting their health, and sometimes their lives, on the line to help the rest of us live as normal lives as possible.
This is one of the reasons why this year’s international workers’ memorial day takes on added significance and poignance. As we honour those who have been killed or injured at work, we must also commit to fight for the living.
No worker should ever have to forgo protection at work that could save their life, or prevent illness or injury. And they should never be told to stay silent and not speak out about their concerns and fears over the lack of PPE.
It is little surprise that the Royal College of Nursing, Royal College of Surgeons of England, the BMA, and other unions are taking the extraordinary step of advising their members to walk away if PPE is not provided.
The bravery and commitment of people who are having to carry on going to work on the frontline through this crisis cannot be an excuse for ministers to ride roughshod over their rights and protections. It is no good the Prime Minister and Chancellor just standing outside Number 10 to clap for our carers, as we are doing in our communities every week; the Government must do more to keep our key workers safe, whether they are NHS and care workers, bus drivers, shop staff or others.
We know that after a pandemic exercise in 2016 simulating a deadly respiratory virus, the Government was warned that the NHS would face a severe shortage of ventilators and PPE and was advised to rectify the issue before it was too late. As we reflect on safety at work today, serious questions must be asked why this did not happen and why ministers failed to increase the supply, production and stockpiling of this vital equipment.
Labour is working constructively with the Government to stop the spread of this virus and to provide as much support as possible to workers and businesses, as well as providing the necessary scrutiny to hold ministers to account. We have to get this right now and do more to provide security to people in and out of work.
But the work to build a better society for when this crisis is over must also start now. We cannot go back to business as usual. We need a new employment rights settlement, and a rethink of the world of work, to provide better protection for all workers, better rights and better rewards for what they do.
