Workplace Law Magazine is available only to Premium Members of the Workplace Law Network. Produced 10 times each year, it is distributed in hard copy format in the first week of the month, and is also available online.
Contractors: are you watching them?
If you start to think about some of the key workplace incidents and case reports you have heard about in recent months and years, you’ll spot a common theme. From the Tebay incident in which four track workers were crushed to death in 2004, to the outbreak of Legionnaires’Disease in Barrow-in-Furness, which led to the deaths of seven people — one key factor links these cases together: the involvement of contractors. When contractors are utilised to carr y out specific tasks, confusion in respect of responsibility for managing health and safety risk can, and does, arise. This confusion can lead to businesses neglecting, through ignorance, their health and safety responsibilities, which, in the event of an accident, can lead to a health and safety prosecution. This issue, we take an in-depth look at where employers go wrong in the management of contractors; ask whose responsibility it is to ensure contractors work safely; examine the key lessons learnt from high-profile cases; and find out how constr uction firm Overbury — which handles numerous contractors on a daily basis — avoids difficulties arisingIn this issue…
Are you watching your contractors?
Are contractors working safely on your premises? Misunderstandings over who is responsible for the health and safety of contractors and sub-contractors mean many businesses haven’t concerned themselves with what contractors are up to, but this has left them open to the threat of damaging prosecutions. The inescapable truth of the matter is that you — as the client — are responsible. Katy Brown reports.
7 landmark contractor cases
Sections 2 and 3 of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 (HSWA) impose strict liability on employers regarding employees and non-employees, and in recent years there have been various attempts to persuade the courts that this should be mitigated where the acts of others, such as contractors, have caused or contributed to an apparent breach of the regulations. Bernie Sheehan explores what employers can learn from recent high-profile cases.
Dodging bullets live at the BIFM conference
Earlier in the month Workplace Law Group gave facilities managers the runaround at the BIFM’s annual conference, with Dodging Bullets Live, a gameshow based on the book of the same name.
Passport to good health and safety
Caroline Holden of IOSH weighs up the pros and cons of health and safety passports.
A human approach to contractor safety
The majority of Britain’s construction companies find themselves relying on personnel that are ‘employed’ at arms length. Health and safety legislation is no less stringent in the duty of care it places on these companies but the obstacles that they must overcome to fulfil these duties differ considerably from those operating a more conventional corporate structure. Patrick Dye takes a look at how construction firm Overbury copes with the issue.
The new Construction Industry Scheme – good or bad?
Isobel d’Inverno of Macroberts considers whether the new Construction Industry Scheme will cause problems.
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