International Workers’ Memorial Day on 28 April is our day to remember the dead and fight for the living.
Up to 50,000 people die each year in the UK from work-related ill health and incidents. Although few UNISON members die in workplace incidents, many suffer injuries and work-related ill health, from stress or back pain to RSI, bullying, harassment, and workplace violence.
These affect them and their families.
Health and safety in our workplaces also protects those in the wider community. Whether it is a hospital, school or care home, our elderly and vulnerable relatives, our children and our communities are also protected by measures intended to keep everyone safe from harm.
UNISON knows that the key to providing a good and safe service is well-trained employees who have the time and protective equipment to do their job properly.
How can you mark International Workers’ Memorial Day and support the campaign for safe and healthy work?
- Find out what is happening locally in your region, contact your local TUC, hazards campaign group or UNISON regional organising staff, and support any event.
- If there isn’t one in your workplace, organise an event, perhaps jointly with your employer – UNISON can offer ideas and provide support and advice how to do this.
- Use the day to reinvigorate the campaign for better health and safety or to discuss a workplace health and safety concern with members, non-members and the employer.
- Many UNISON branches have successfully organised and recruited around local health and safety concerns using national campaigns such as Safety in Numbers and Cut Stress not Jobs.
- Use our materials, including UNISON’s poster for International Workers’ Memorial Day 2014 (available now) and our International Workers’ Memorial Day 2014 leaflet (out soon).
- Don’t forget to wear the purple ‘forget-me-knot’ ribbon and join the minute’s silence at 12 noon on the day itself.
- And how about a ‘health and selfie’? Just take a picture of yourself holding a card with a message supporting health and safety, and tweet it to @UNISON_HS, your local MP and press using #HealthandSelfie and #IWMD14. Your message could include: ‘Remember the dead and fight for the living’ or ‘health and safety – for workers, clients, patients and children’.
What else can you do?
Support the campaigns and sign the petitions against the downgrading of European law and the proposed EU-US trade agreement.
Most UK health and safety law comes from the EU. The European Commission’s five-year health and safety strategy expired in 2012 and no replacement has been adopted.
But a regulatory fitness and performance strategy was adopted in October 2013. This aims to repeal regulations that are deemed burdensome on businesses.
The EU is also negotiating a new free trade agreement with the US. Unlike traditional agreements, the main aim of the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership is to reduce regulatory barriers to trade.
Given that the EU has better protections for workers, consumers, and the environment than the US, there is a real danger that the new agreement will weaken these.
And let us know what you have planned, email healthandsafety@unison.co.uk and we’ll post the details on the UNISON website.
We need to stop the race to the bottom – your health and safety is worth it. Join our campaign for safe and healthy work, services, and communities.
Order your copies of the UNISON poster via our online catalogue, quoting stock no 2997
Download a copy of the poster for printing locally [PDF]
Order the official ‘forget-me-knot’ purple ribbons from Greater Manchester Hazards Centre [Word document]
UNISON Knowledge: health and safety topics (member-only content)
Sign the petitions against the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment Partnership on the Sum of Us, and Avaaz websites
Follow our ongoing campaign for International Workers’ Memorial Day on this UNISON website, on our Facebook page and via Twitter. You can tweet using #IWMD14.
