Hazards 120, October-December 2012

FEATURES

LOW LIFE Whether your job is making people better or making plastics, don’t expect a safety inspector to call. Hazards reveals how the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has designated most jobs either too safe for them to bother, or just not worth the effort even if they are shockingly dangerous. more

CANCER COSTS Andy Watterson warns that official inaction on work-related cancers is consigning thousands to an early grave each year and costing the economy billions. more

SIMON Simon Pickvance quietly exposed the extent of the UK’s hidden epidemic of work-related ill-health and proved the solution must lie in workers’ own hands. Hazards remembers a brilliant colleague, who has died aged 63 of a work-related cancer. more

BIG LIARS After noisily protesting their innocence, it seems the biggest names in UK construction were – and some remain - safety blacklisters after all. Hazards warns that victimisation of union and safety activists is alive and killing. more

CENTREPAGES

GAME ON! What it comes to conditions at work, union safety reps are the first and last line of defence. In hostile times, Mick Holder says their skills need to be tip-top to win improvements. more

PHOTOFILE

MATERIAL DAMAGE As workers as young as eleven fall sick in tanneries in Bangladesh, the country’s government is standing by and doing nothing. Research by Human Rights Watch (HRW) reveals the dreadful human cost of producing leather products. more

POSTER

THIS WAS NO ACCIDENT Work-related health problems kill at least 100 times as many people each year as workplace injuries. more

ELSEWHERE IN HAZARDS

News in brief, 8-17. Unions and campaigns, 26-31. International news, 32-34.