August 13, 1999
The safety of workers at work continues to be a serious problem. In pursuit of maximum profits the capitalist employers disregard the dangers workers face with little or no action taken to improve the working conditions in different kinds of environment. Legislation, which includes the Health and Safety at Work Act, has done nothing to improve the situation and have in fact made it worse in many cases. Government created the legislation in order to favour the employer. It made sure that companies only had to take "Reasonable Precautions", a wholly ambiguous criteria for making sure that plant and equipment etc. was safe to use. The inspections of work areas are minimal and often rule in favour of employers on the basis of not adding unnecessary costs to business. Safety Committees are set up sparingly and in some cases do not exist in many establishments. They were set up to offset union organisation in this field.
In the West Midlands the issues of safety are no different to elsewhere but a raw survey of the last quarter reveals that the problem continues to be a serious one. Newspaper reportage from the bourgeois media is scarce but does reveal some serious incidents from various parts of the region.
On May 18th a young worker, aged only 18 was hit in the face by molten metal. This accident took place at BE Wedge, a galvanising firm in Willenhall while the young man was working on the 2pm to 10pm shift. The youth was splashed with zinc and suffered injuries to his face, arms and neck. He had to be rushed to Wolverhampton Hospital and later transferred to the burns unit at Selly Oak in Birmingham. The foreman took the youth to hospital.
On the 23rd June an electricity worker was killed by a massive electric shock as he worked at a Midlands Electricity Board sub-station. The station is situated at Bushbury in Wolverhampton. During a massive explosion the 34-year-old man was believed to have received an electric shock of approximately 34,000 volts. A fellow worker, who was nearby at the time, tried to help him and received severe shock and burns himself. The Inspector from the Health and Safety Executive came to the site after a report of an explosion and found the deceased worker and his shocked colleague. A station officer said that there was a fire involving insulating oil that runs through the circuit breaker.
Two women assistants fled a Great Bridge fish and chip shop when it went up in flames. The frying range at the Black Country shop exploded when it was switched on for the day's frying on June 27th. Both women were overcome by smoke but managed to escape from the High Street shop. One of the women workers said that she had switched on the range to begin heating it up when it exploded.
"Flames were shooting up and I ran to the back to phone the fire brigade and then ran outside," she said.
Her fellow workmate was also present and ran through the back door. Firemen treated the workers with oxygen at the scene when they arrived. The sub-officer, who was from Handsworth, reported the cause of the fire.
"It was caused by a build -up of fat in the flue at the back of the range and it was triggered when it was switched on," he said, "The women were lucky not to have been burned."
The fire completely melted the range.
On 21st July a construction worker investigating a foul water drain in Solihull High Street had to be winched to safety after he fell down a 15ft hole. The middle-aged man who works for T. Maguire slipped and fell off a ladder while he was climbing out of the hole. The man was unconscious after his head hit iron girders near to the concrete floor, but he regained consciousness when paramedics and fire fighters arrived. Backup crews from Bickenhill had to help rescue the man from the hole. Paramedics and two fire officers went down into the hole to stabilise the man who was being comforted by a fellow worker. It took about 30 minutes to bring the man out. He needed a spine board placing beneath him to get him out without further damage. He was then placed into a scoop stretcher before hauling him up.
Two factory workers have died after apparantly being overcome by fumes in a suspected chemical leak in an engineering factory. Workers arriving for the dayshift discovered the bodies at ENG Ltd, Black Lake, West Bromwich. Fire service experts believe a number of of substances may have leaked and combined to make a lethal gas. The firm uses a concoction of chemicals to strip and clean metals. The main A41 outside the firm had to be closed and motorists diverted. A decontamination shower also had to be set up for the firefighters had to be set up in the road. The owners of the firm have refused to comment on the tragedy.
It is a point of concern to note how the capitalists get off lightly when accidents occur at work. Recently a young man of 20 years was killed when a spark caused an explosion at a paint plant. A verdict of "accidental" death was delivered by an inquest when a young decorator died in a blast at a factory. The man, from Hall Green in Birmingham, suffered 60% burns in the explosion at the Du Ponts paint plant in Minworth at Sutton Coldfield. The inquest heard that he was cleaning a tank with flammable solvents when static electricity ignited a fireball. The young man died from his injuries in hospital 17 days later.