By Phil James and David Walters

Published in December 2005

Over a million workers each year suffer an accident at work, more than two million people suffer an illness which they believe to have been caused by their work and more than 25,000 people leave the labour force each year as a result of work-related injury and illness. Such injury and ill health results in the annual loss of over 25 million working days. The estimated cost to the tax payer is over £58 billion in medical and social security costs. The cost to workers and their families is clearly socially and morally unacceptable.

Edited by Bernard Ryan

Published in October 2005

Migrant workers often enter the UK in the hope of finding a better life – the truth is often far from that. Migrant workers are denied social benefits and are offered very little protection in terms of employment rights while the destitution faced by unemployed migrants makes them more vulnerable to unscrupulous employers.

Sorry, we are now sold out of this book.

By Lydia Seymour and Andrew Short

Published in October 2005

This publication examines the impact and operation of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 in the 10 years since it passed through Parliament. It is fair to say that many concerns were expressed by unions and disability groups when the DDA was first introduced. Those concerns were recorded in the first edition of this booklet, published in 2000. That report also raised suggestions for improvements in the Act, many of which have now been addressed through amendments to the original Act.

By Jenny Eady QC and Rebecca Tuck

Published in September 2005

Is Britain’s trade union movement dying? That is the question raised in the first article of this edition of Federation News. In the final article the conclusion is no. Trade unions will survive as long as workers’ are exploited.

That is not to deny that the world is changing. Capitalism is on the offensive. Neither domestic nor international labour law have kept pace with the growing economic power of transnationals. So how are unions responding?

By Harry Glasbeek

Published in August 2005

As UK trade unionists eagerly await the introduction of the long promised Corporate Manslaughter Bill, this Comparative Note looks at what we can learn from similar legislation introduced in Canada in 2004.

The Canadian legislation came about following a major industrial accident and the inability of the existing criminal legislation to hold anyone to account. The Bill however, rather than deal with the inherent conflict in capitalist corporations (the push for profit versus the promotion of safety), attempts to redress “narrow technical difficulties created by law and the judiciary”.