Employers are required by law to provide a safe, hazard-free working environment. Compensation claims and personal injury claims can be filed against employers if a person suffers as a result of a breach of the Health and Safety legislation. Construction accidents and injuries are often in the news, and employers in construction companies can be found to be in breach of their duty of care, by using unsafe and defective equipment, with accident claims filed against them.
In June 2010 an employee of a joinery firm took his employers to court where they pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 (1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 by failing to protect their workers. The employee lost his right index finger by trapping his hand in a cutting machine that did not have a proper safety guard installed. The company was fined £3,000 and ordered to pay costs of £1,000.
The Health and Safety at Work (third edition published 2006), issued by the Health and Safety Executive, states that the most frequent accidents in the workplace are falls, mobile machinery, falling materials and collapses, electrical accidents, and trips. If the employee is injured in the workplace due to unsafe conditions, he can make a compensation claim or personal injury claim against his employers.
Construction workers are also regularly exposed to hazardous substances in their work, and ill-health can result from asbestos, manual handling, noise and vibration, and chemicals.
The Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (2002, amended 2003) states the precautions the employer should take to prevent accidents. If these precautions are not carried out, and an accident occurs as a result, an employee can make a personal injury claim.
In Scotland in June 2010, a construction firm that was ordered to pay £5,000 has now been ordered to pay eight times that amount, following the tragic death of a Polish worker in 2008. They were found to be in breach of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, as they failed the employee, who fell to his death down an unprotected shaft on a housing construction site in Dundee.
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