In 2003 the Institute of Employment Rights published a report entitled Achieving Equality at Work. In it, a number of leading equality experts critically examined the current framework of equality law and looked ahead to the possibility of improved and extended protection offered under the European Union Framework Directive on Employment Equality.

Each year over 40,000 workers die or suffer major injuries as a result of accidents at work. As many as 20,000 workers may die of occupational illnesses. In an effort to reduce such carnage, the Institute of Employment Rights produced a report in 1997 analysing UK health and safety laws and suggesting a range of recommendations for government action. A year after the IER report was published the government published its own report, which contained proposals and targets for improving the system for health and safety at work. This booklet revisits the IER’s recommendations and compares them to the proposals put forward by the government. It goes on to critically consider the extent to which the government strategy has delivered a safe and healthy working environment before outlining what we believe still needs to be done to protect people at work. The conclusions are stark. The government has failed to take forward any of the legal reforms proposed in its own report.

By Bryn Davies, John Grieve Smith and Ivan Walker

Published in February 2004

Pensions have rarely been out of the headlines in recent years, with the collapse of high-profile occupational schemes and mis-selling of personal plans sitting uncomfortably beside the Government’s aim of reducing the State’s role and making us responsible for funding our own old age.

But cutting away the hype and confusion to get at the truth is almost impossible and most of us have no idea where to begin.

Now the Institute of Employment Rights has published a booklet that evaluates the pensions crisis and explores how the Government’s planned changes will affect both public and private sector workers.

The booklet looks at the legal, industrial and economic issues surrounding pensions and explodes many of the myths that underpin current pensions thinking.

By Debra Evenson

Published in November 2003

Foreword by Eddie McDermott, Regional Secretary, T&G (South East & East Anglia) The publication of this booklet in England has arisen from a chance meeting in the Cuban equivalent of Congress House between members of a visiting T&G aviation workers’ delegation and Debra Evenson, the author, in February 2002.

By Keith Ewing, Sian Moore and Stephen Wood

Published in October 2003

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