UCATT Responds To “Enterprise” White Paper

Construction union UCATT have criticised the “Enterprise” White Paper launched by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, for potentially endangering the lives of workers.

The White Paper titled “Enterprise: Unlocking the UK’s Talent, focuses on regulation and suggests that small business should have lower levels of regulation, including less health and safety legislation. The report says that health and safety provisions cost small businesses £149 per worker a year, which is suggested is an excessive amount. Last year 77 construction workers were killed the vast majority of whom worked for small companies.

Alan Ritchie, general secretary of UCATT, said: “The ministers and the civil servants behind this report ‘know the cost of everything and the value of nothing’. Perhaps they would like to tell the widows of construction workers killed doing their jobs, exactly what monetary value should have been placed on their loved ones’ lives.”

Rather than talking about regulation perhaps Mr Hutton and his ministerial team should concentrate their efforts on ensuring that workers in Britain are not being exploited daily by their bosses. UCATT has been campaigning to have the Gangmasters Act extended to the construction industry, where academic research from the University of Sheffield has revealed that 30 per cent of the industry operates in the “shadow economy”. The BERR have consistently rejected this proposal.

Mr Ritchie, added: “The construction industry is becoming increasingly fragmented and casualised. This makes sites more dangerous and leads to greater exploitation of the workforce. For hard working construction workers to be told that there is going to be even less regulation, is a kick in the teeth as they will fear that the few protections that already exist will be cut.”

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