English Corpus

Workers’ unions in the UK and the USA are getting worried about the health and safety of labourers working in the paper manufacturing companies.

United Steelworkers recently did a research to see whether the US paper industry is complying with health and safety regulations. The union found that employers in the paper industry grossly overlook safety requirements. It also found that employers indulge in unlawful practices like paying their workers for not reporting accidents at the workplace (click on accident investigation), which shows them to be responsible for distorting the reality.

United Steelworkers has come together with Unite the Union and has created a global workers’ organisation called Workers Uniting that has taken a serious note of this matter. As many have expressed the view that this negligence towards workers safety may also be the case in the UK, Workers Uniting has decided to do a similar research in the UK as well.

This negligence being present in the UK is quite likely, as a large number of employers in the industry are common between the UK and the USA, as stated by Jon Geenen, the Vice-President of United Steelworkers.

This research to be conducted in the UK will be the biggest research project of its kind, and will be followed by a campaign to improve safety, security and health of workers. The campaign will be launched next year.

According to Unite the Union, globalisation has made profit the only motive and thus has encouraged employers to neglect safety of workers if it leads to greater savings and profits. Unite Assistant General Secretary Tony Burke said that the scheme to give monetary reward for reduction in reporting of accidents will merely enable the employer to avoid the law. The cost of avoidance will be much lesser than the cost involved in implementing the procedure.

However, this avoidance on the part of employers will only harm the labourers who will be unsafe at their workplaces.