Put directors in the dock over workplace casualties

Top trade unionists are promoting a private member's bill that would hold individual directors to account for workplace casualties. Following the failure to include directors' duties in the framework for the draft bill on corporate manslaughter that was announced in the November Queen's Speech (Risks 184), the Transport and General Workers' Union (TGWU) and the Union of Construction, Allied Trades and Technicians (UCATT) have joined forces to press for a tough new law. The latest phase of the campaign was launched with a 2 December House of Commons lobby of MPs. TGWU and UCATT said under their Health and Safety (Directors' Duties) Bill there would be the prospect of custodial sentences for directors where serious health and safety breaches or negligence results in death. Tony Woodley, TGWU general secretary, said: 'The law has to support victims of health and safety negligence, not protect the bosses whose recklessness kills. Workers are losing their lives and it is only right that companies are held accountable for safety in the same way they are for financial impropriety.' Alan Ritchie, UCATT general secretary, said: 'My union believes that it is vital to have in place strong legislation to protect workers, ensuring that negligent employers, corporations and individual directors can be brought to justice as a direct result of their actions.'