Dock worker death surge in UK

Five UK dock workers have been killed in as many months when the average is normally no more than two deaths per year – so the big question is why have health and safety inspections ceased?
According to the Unite union, the reason is that since last year, UK dock work has been declared as ‘low risk’ in terms of health and safety.
Responding to an article in issue 117 of Hazards magazine, Unite the UK’s largest dockworker’s union finds it “ludicrous” that the government has downgraded the safety of docks and proposed that “proactive inspection will no longer take place” – as outlined in the governmental strategy document Good health and safety, good for everyone.
Andy Green, the Unite convenor at Tilbury Docks (where two fatalities took place last October), said: “Since the downgrade of health and safety, the number of fatal industries has increased…current funding levels are crippling the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) with reduced enforcement and inspections in the so called ‘low risk’ dock industry. The truth is that dock workers are being killed at an alarming rate.”
Unite warns that there may also be deaths not included in HSE’s statistics because they may fall under the remit of the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). It seems that deaths can fall into a number of different sectors i.e. water transport or cargo handling, which don't result in a single casualty count at a dock – making the industry as a whole seem safer.
Unite is calling for the government to provide the necessary resources to the HSE to better police the industry and help reduce the amount of casualties.

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