Solidarity on workers memorial lday 2013

Every year workers around the world celebrate their fallen comrades injured or killed at work. This is a opportunity to reflect and remember the dead but most importantly to continue to fight for the living. The real scandal is the 20,000 people who die each year in the UK due to injury or diseases linked to their work. The government of millionaires is attacking our health and safety legislation. The Health and Safety Executive's budget has been cut by 35%. There has been a 50% cut in the number of workplace inspections and the number of prosecutions have fallen by the same amount. The bosses are demanding many more safety regulations be swept away. Workers' Memorial Day is held on 28 April every year. The TUC says: "the day serves as a rallying cry to remember the dead, but fight like hell for the For centuries working people have demanded justice for those slain in the workplaces by the bosses whose sole motivation is profit. If we don't fight to maintain the gains of the past then the bosses and their government will surely take them away. Every year more people are killed at work than in wars. Most don't die of mystery ailments, or in tragic "accidents". They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn't that important a priority. Workers’ Memorial Day (WMD) commemorates those workers. Workers' Memorial Day is held on 28 April every year, all over the world workers and their representatives conduct events, demonstrations, vigils and a whole host of other activities to mark the day. The day is also intended to serve as a rallying cry to “remember the dead, but fight like hell for the living”. The TUC coordinates activities across the country, publishing a comprehensive listing of events and suggestions. A listing of the global activities is available from the Hazards website. Every year, two million men and women die worldwide as a result of work-related injuries and diseases. Workers' Memorial Day held annually on 28 April, is a day when all over the world workers and their representatives conduct events, demonstrations, vigils and a host of other activities to remember this toll. The TUC says in the UK over 20,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of injuries or accidents caused by their work. This year it has called on unions and safety campaigners to make 28 April a day of action to defend health and safety from attacks by the press, politicians and employers. The union body is concerned that the UK's workplace safety record could be about to get worse as a direct result of government policies. Not only do funding cuts - both to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and to local authorities - mean there will be fewer official safety inspections, the government has also said that workplaces like shops, offices, schools, docks and farms no longer need to be routinely visited. TUC adds that 'health and safety bashers' should be reminded what safety law is really all about - not pointless regulation but necessary protection to stop employers taking risks with workplace safety and which prevents people from being killed, injured or made ill as a result of their work.

Horse meat scandal, profit is the underlying motive

With the recent scandal of horse meat being found in our food mostly beef but also found in other meats I thought it’d be good to blog on this. For me it comes as no great surprise that big business tries and fobs us off with cheap meat and meat that isn’t even meat to make a profit. For me this is the underlying issue the quest for the blind drive of profit they will try and get away with whatever they can in order to profit from our ignorance. No doubt this has been going on for many years I even read somewhere Lenin raising concerns of contaminated meat back in the 20th century so its been going on for as long as we can remember. For as long as profit is the primary motivator to produce meat not for peoples needs or the betterment of their health then issues like this will happen time and time again . I did want to point out though which probably has not been mentioned so far is the fact that I feel and with probably good reason the regulatory bodies in this case the FSA the Food Safety Agency was not aware of traces of horse meant being found in our food well I was not surprised about this either I firmly believe that just like with other so called independent regulators they are firmly in the pockets of big business much like the independent press complaints commission and the Independent Police and Crime commission all a load of corrupt industry hacks no doubt. This for me realises many questions. Is any of our food to be trusted? I fear not I think we never really know what is in our foods that we eat on a daily basis. If we are in hospital or prison how do we have any idea what we are being fed day in day out. Fact is we don’t not eve the FSA did until this scandal broke. What gets me is that if this had not come out and the whistle had not been blown then this would still be going on today they have only reacted as they’ve been caught out otherwise we’d still be eating god knows what and probably still are. Ten companies dominate global food production and the drive for profit comes first. Big business politicians are generally obedient to the demands of the super-rich manufacturers. Profits soar while health problems mount up and industry employees suffer attacks on working conditions. Low pay denies millions from buying high-quality food. And unsustainable agribusiness production is wrecking the environment. According to the Food Standards Agency (FSA), horsemeat has been found in one in every 75 beef products available in the high street, as well as in cottage pies sent to 47 schools in Lancashire and ready meals sent to hospitals in Northern Ireland. The FSA was established in 2000 as a watchdog on food safety and nutrition, in the wake of the BSE scandal a few years earlier. Part of its remit is to monitor the three million cattle, 13 million pigs, 19 million sheep and lambs, 70 million fish and 800 million birds that are slaughtered every year in the UK for human consumption. Food writer, Joanna Blythman accused the FSA of having an "unduly cosy relationship with the food companies, bio-tech companies and large retailers". As if to demonstrate this the former CEO of the FSA, Tim Smith, is now Tesco's Global Technical Director. Staff numbers at the FSA have dropped by 42% from 2007-2010 reducing meat inspection costs by £13.5 million, and since then a further 13% of staff have been axed. Its budget has been cut by £44 million since 2010. On her blog Blythman comments further: "Now, providing a food-processing company has a paper trail that appears to demonstrate 'due diligence' and conforms to 'quality assurance' schemes, supermarkets take its products on trust. "So unless a whistleblower tips off the authorities or obvious casualties line up in the form of poisoned consumers, any funny business in the factory goes undetected." Moreover, council environmental health teams, which are responsible for inspections of food retailing, fast food and restaurants, have also been squeezed. According to Environmental Health News spending has been cut by "32% since 2009, outstripping cuts in most other service areas." Most workplaces can be expected to be inspected somewhere from every six months to every two years. Some commentators have suggested that horsemeat is being used as a replacement for Desinewed Meat (DSM), which itself was a replacement for Mechanically Recovered Meat (MRM), also known as 'pink slime'. This is produced by removing residual meat from animal bones by high pressure water. The difference between the two is that DSM is removed at lower pressure retaining some structure, but both are a far cheaper source of 'meat' than actual cuts. DSM was reclassified as a form of MRM around a year ago which means it can no longer be listed as meat. It's quite telling that a former FSA specialist, Dr Mark Woolfe, was quoted in the press saying that DSM "was a perfectly good ingredient for value products". In essence he is saying that low-quality food is adequate for those on low incomes who have to buy value products. He then goes on to justify companies using horsemeat as they searched for similarly priced 'meat' to protect their profit margins. Horses are also slaughtered in Britain, some of which are for domestic human consumption, but mainly for export. The UK government's system of passports for horses is meant to identify what drugs they have been treated with over their lifetime, including the anti-inflammatory drug phenylbutazone (Bute). In high enough concentrations Bute can have severe side effects in humans. However, the passport system is deeply flawed. 7,000 of these passports were issued by the Spotted Horse and Pony Organisation after it had its license to do so withdrawn in 2008 by Defra, a government department. This is just one of over 75 organisations which can issue such licenses. According to the Ulster Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals around 70,000 horses are untraceable in both the North and South of Ireland. With the suspected involvement of criminal gangs, horses worth as little as £10 (due to drug treatment) are being sold to slaughterhouses with false passports and identification microchips for up to £400. Although it is highly unlikely that sufficient levels of Bute are present in the horsemeat to seriously affect humans, a bigger potential danger is contamination by bacteria such as salmonella from 'back-street' abattoirs. As long as capitalist companies, driven by the profit motive, produce our food then that profit will always come first, before quality and our health and safety. A lax regulatory system and cutbacks in inspections, means that the horsemeat scandal and previous food scares clearly won't be the last. Only a nationalised food industry, under democratic workers' control, alongside taking other key sections in the economy into public control would allow resources to be devoted to making sure our food is safe and correctly labelled. Socialist Party news and analysis Toxic Tories - With extracts taken from http://www.socialistparty.org.uk/issue/753/16191/20-02-2013/food-adulteration-government-cutbacks-and-capitalist-profits

Remembering the dead on workers memorial day

As every year we stop to remember those who have died and lost loved ones in accidents at work and those brave workers who do some extremely dangerous jobs for their employers.


The day is also intended to serve as a rallying cry to “remember the dead, but fight like hell for the living”.
Toll. The TUC says in the UK over 20,000 people die prematurely every year as a result of injuries or accidents caused by their work. This year it has called on unions and safety campaigners to make 28 April a day of action to defend health and safety from attacks by the press, politicians and employers. The union body is concerned that the UK's workplace safety record could be about to get worse as a direct result of government policies. Not only do funding cuts - both to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and to local authorities - mean there will be fewer official safety inspections, the government has also said that workplaces like shops, offices, schools, docks and farms no longer need to be routinely visited. TUC adds that 'health and safety bashers' should be reminded what safety law is really all about - not pointless regulation but necessary protection to stop employers taking risks with workplace safety and which prevents people from being killed, injured or made ill as a result of their work. TUC general secretary Brendan Barber said: 'Sensible employers who are happy to work closely with unions improving safety and occupational health at work don't see safety regulation as an intrusive burden. But rogue employers, who are happy to cut corners and take risks with their employees' safety, do. It's these reckless employers that we need to target and the government's rhetoric will only encourage yet more of them to think they can get away with unsafe workplaces - without fear of ever getting a visit from the HSE or their local council.' UK events have been organised in over 50 towns and cities from Aberdeen to Penzance.
With the rights calls for slashing red tape in other words cutting health and safety measures will only make the workplace more and more dangerous for workers young and old.
Coupled with the fact that workers are being asked to work long and longer while the contradiction that there is record young people unemployed is ridiculous. Those older workers can be putting themselves in unnecessary danger by carrying on working past the age they’d normally retire due to not being able to afford to retire.

Its time we fought back and fought back for all workers young or old.