Campaign
QUIZ
What do you knowabout the harm caused by work in Great Britaintoday?
1. How many workers werekilled last year 2012/13in work-related incidents?
a) 148b) 12,000c) over 1,000d) 250
2. What percentage of deaths and major injuries are due to poor management of health and safety by employers?
a) 2%b)10%c) 100%d) over 70%
3. How many workers die each year from work-related illnesses caused by, for example, exposure to chemicals, dusts, carcinogens such as asbestos, stress from long hours of work, overwork, bullying and harassment?
a) 10,000b)20,000c) 50,000d) 175
4. Where isGreat Britain in the league table on occupational health safety performanceof Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Developmentcountries?
a) 30/34b) 1/34c) 10/34d) 20/34
5.DWP Minister Chris Grayling published ‘Good Health and Safety:Good for Everyone’ in March 2011, banning 33% of proactive inspections in ‘low risk’ workplaces. What sort of workplaces are classified as ‘low risk’ (More than 1 correct answer)?
a) Agricultureb) Quarriesc) Docksc) Manufacturing
6. The HSE average death rate for all workplacesin 2011/12 was 0.6 per 100,000 workers, what was the death rate in the Docks at the time?
a) up to 20x the averageb)the averagec)2 x the average d) well below average
7. What is the real risk of a worker dying because of work (illness and incident)?
a)Less than winning the lottery b) 1 in 100c) 1 in a milliond) 1 in 200,000
8. How many people were suffering from work-related ill-health in 2011/12
a) 1.8 million b) 15 millionc) 50,000d) 500,000
9. How much does poor workplace health and safety cost society each year?
a) £20- £40 millionb) £20-40 billion c) £20,000-40,000 d) £1 million
10. What percentage of that cost is borne by employers?
a) less than 25%b) over 75%c) 100%d) about 5%
11Who bears the biggestcost burden of poor health and safety?
a) workers & familiesb) the statec) taxpayersd) employers?
ANSWERS to Hazards Campaign workplace health and safety quiz 2013
1. How many workers are killed annually in work-related incidents?
Answer: c) over 1,000
The 148 workers reported as killed at work 2012/13, are only those reported to the HSE and Local Authorities under RIDDOR, but are NOT the total. UK Statistics Authority, May 2010, states:‘HSE does not produce an overall figure for work-related fatalities in Great Britain.’ and makes recommendations that they ‘investigate the feasibility of producing statistics on the total number of work-related injuries and fatalities’. Hazards Magazine/Campaign estimatesof total work incident deaths based on authoritative sources:
In GB in 2012/13= 933 – 1,375 workers killed in work-related incidents + 113 members of the public = total 1,046 to 1,488made up of:
•148 workers reported to HSE & L.A. under RIDDOR
•+ Workers killed at sea* and in the air estimated at 50
•+ 585 – 877 killed in work-related road traffic incidents- lorry drivers + some of those on their way to work + others killed in those road traffic incidents l(one third to half of total Road traffic fatalities of 1,754 are work-related)
•+ about 150-300 suicides due to the pressures of work (suicides up >10% in current economic crisis)
•+ Members of the public killed by work activity = 113
*Merchant seafarers killed UK water and on board UK ships, plus those killed in Fishing in UK waters.
2. What percentage of deaths and major injuries are due to poor management of health and safety by employers? Answer: d) over 70%Thisis the HSE estimate.
3. How many workers die each year from work-related illnesses caused by, for example, exposure to chemicals, dusts, carcinogens such as asbestos, stress from long hours of work, overwork, bullying and harassment?Answers b) 20,000 and c) 50,000
The TUC estimates a minimum of 20,000, the Hazards Magazine/Campaign estimate based on authoritative sources is 50,000 made up of:18,000 work-related cancer deaths (12% of all cancer deaths) including at least 5,000 due to asbestos cancers; plus 20,000 work-related deaths from heart disease (20% of deaths) due to stress, long hours, shift work and dust exposure; plus 12,000 from work-related respiratory and other illnesses. Safety & Health Practitioner, Dec 2008: ‘The Whole Story’
4. Where is GB in league table on occupational health & safety performance of Organisation for Economic Co-operation & Development (OECD) countries?
Answer: 20/34
Maplecroft Risk Index Report, 2010 put Britain 20th out of 34 countries in the OECD for occupational health safety performance.
5. DWP Minister Chris Grayling published ‘Good Health and Safety: Good for Everyone’ in March 2011 banning 33% of proactive inspections in ‘low risk’ workplaces. What sort of workplaces are now classified as ‘low risk’? Trick Q! Answer: ALL OF THEM:
Despite their high rates of major and fatal injury, Agriculture, Quarries, Docks and Manufacturing are all now in the ‘low risk/hazard’ category and inspectors from the HSE (11,000 fewer inspections) and Local Authorities (65,000 fewer inspections) are banned from carrying out proactive inspections in those sectors.Sectors also in the low hazard/risk category are: the whole of the public sector hospitals, school colleges, emergency services; road and air transport, electrical engineering, office and shops. Despite the fact that occupational ill-health such as stress and musculo-skeletal disorders are at epidemic levels in these sectors, and workers still face physical injury from exposure to asbestos & other chemicals, violence, slips trips and falls, manual handling, and, as in Docks, many workers are still killed, preventative, proactive advisory inspections now banned.
6. The HSE average death rate for all workplaces was 0.6 per 100,000, what was the death rate in the Docks at the time (now classified as ‘low hazard’)?Answer: a) up to 20x the average
It depends on the total number of workers in the docks which isa hard figure to pin down. The range is from 5xup to 20x the national average deaths. HSE inspectors on their way to investigate a fatal injury to a worker in Immingham docks, noticed something so dangerous that they put an immediate prohibition notice on it, which may have prevented injury or death, but the inspectors were only there because someone had already been killed, as proactive inspection are banned in the ‘low hazard/risk’ Docks.Hazards ‘Safety in the Dock’:
7. What is the real risk of a worker dying because of work (illness and incident)?
Answer: b) 1 in 100
As government and HSE do not publicise total figures, see above; the press & media promote apocryphal stories rather than the real risks workers face daily; & the business lobby promotes the falsehoods of healthsafety being a ‘burden on business’, and so the real risk far higher than publicised. Risk of non-fatal injury or illness even higher and most of the risk falls on the working class.
8. How many people were suffering from work-related ill-health in 2011/12
Answer: a) 1.8 million Figures for 2012/13 not available yet
HSE Statistics 2012/13
9. How much does poor workplace health and safety cost society each year?
Answer: b) £20-40 billion minimum!
The HSE records the costs of poor health and safety i.e. deaths, injuries and illnesses (over 70% caused by poor management according to the HSE) as £13.8 billion per year at 2010/11 prices. But this does not include the long latency illnesses like cancers. Each incident fatality costs £1.5 million and each occupational cancer costs over £2.5 million (DEFRA costing). So, even taking HSE’s gross under-estimate of 8,000 work cancer deaths per year would add £20 billion to this total making it nearer £40 billion per year. Taking Hazards figures would make it nearer £60 billion.
10. What percentage of that cost is borne by employers? Answera) less than 25%
HSE latest estimates for 2012/13 are that over half of the cost burden, 57%, falls on individuals, workers and their families, and the state/us/tax payers bears 22%, leaving employers picking up only 21% of the total cost of harm caused by work. See HSE Annual Statistics 2012/13
11 Who bears the biggest cost burden of poor health and safety?
Answera) workers & families
Workers bear the burden - twice! Once as individuals who are harmed (and our families), and again as tax payers. Employers, despite lobbying for cuts in regulation and enforcement as a ‘burden on business’, pay just over one fifth of the cost of breaking health and safety law and mistreating workers. See HSE Annual Statistics Report 212/13 Many of the big corporations lobbying for cuts to regulation and enforcement, are not only very bad for their workers’ health and safety, some are serial killers and offenders, but many may also avoid paying tax!
Hazards Campaign 2013;