Today is International Workers’ Memorial Day, which has been marked on 28th April since 1989. The purpose of the day is to think of all those who have faced injury, disability or loss of life in undertaking their work.
Every year almost 3m people lose their lives due to work-related diseases or occupational accidents, enough that it would rank as the fifth leading cause of death globally if it were a disease.
Beyond sparing a thought for those who have died and the people they have left behind, the goal of recognising the loss of life is to encourage greater protections for those undertaking work to help to preserve life and limb.
While unions in the UK have successfully secured many protections over the years which benefit all those who go to work, in many countries those rights are far more limited and it is important that pressure exists upon countries and companies to act responsibly to avoid injury or death to their workers.
Even in the UK, many of these rights have been weakened over the years, putting workers more at risk. The Labour Party has not only promised to reverse this trend, but expand workers’ rights in order to keep people safe and improve working conditions for all, thought he party’s New Deal for Working People. To find out more go to: https://labour.org.uk/updates/stories/a-new-deal-for-working-people/
Peter Lamb for Crawley 