MAKING A KILLING

"Between the 1997 Labour conference and today, almost 5,000 people have been killed in "workplace incidents". By the time the law is implemented (assuming that Labour is re-elected and that the latest promise isn't broken), another few hundred are likely to die.

The excuse the home secretary makes for these delays is that the bill deals with a "very complex area of law". Strangely, the same consideration did not stop him from rushing through the Prevention of Terrorism Act, which deals with such straightforward areas of law as convicting people before they've been tried. When a government wants something to happen, it makes it happen, whatever the complexities.

The real problem was that from the day the then home secretary opened his mouth at the 1997 conference, big business started mobilising. The government's proposal was popular, as company directors had been able to walk away without penalties from a series of spectacular disasters: the Piper Alpha explosion, the Southall rail crash and the sinking of the Herald of Free Enterprise. So bodies such as the Confederation of British Industry and the Institute of Directors had to proceed carefully. They followed what could be described as the Svejk strategy. At the beginning of Jaroslav Hasek's novel The Good Soldier Svejk, its hero, knowing that he is about to be conscripted into the Austro-Hungarian army, persuades a friend to push him into the recruiting office in a wheelchair, where he noisily volunteers for service, while making it clear that, to his enormous regret, such service is in fact impossible."

...by George Monibiot - read full arcitcle here...