UK Labour leader, Keir Starmer sees the right opportunity to call for ‘sanctions on employers’
Labour unions in the United Kingdom are not happy with the way the government is refusing to redefine the worker safety rules after the economy is trying to open up post a long lockdown period due to the Covid-19 disease.
Many have said that they would prefer to not report to work or stage walk-outs if they feel their personal safety has been compromised by the employer. The evident panic amongst workers comes after as Conservative Party politician and the health secretary, Matthew John David Hancock and has not confirmed any guidelines on social distancing at work to be enforced. The issue remains unaddressed and the vagueness is making workers extremely unsure of whether a safety net exists for them or not.
Speaking on behalf of the workers, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer sees the right opportunity to call for ‘sanctions on employers who flout rules on keeping workers safe from coronavirus.’ Apparently, there are no binding rules to check that employers ensure safety of workers.
With such uncertainty, people are indeed worried to go back to work. Starmer has suggested that a consensus is imperative between the government, opposition parties, employers and trade unions on how to make workplaces safe with national standards on social distancing and hand-washing. Without a shared sense of purpose to defeat the damage done by the pandemic, unity in action to keep workers and other civilians safe, it would be impossible to get the nation back on tracks and economy back to its full throttle.
Speaking on behalf of the workers, the Labour leader, Keir Starmer sees the right opportunity to call for ‘sanctions on employers who flout rules on keeping workers safe from coronavirus.’
With safety standards being thrown out of the window, contamination through workers could be easily carried through finished products, to be found to infect a mass population, starting just another wave of infection from the corona virus.
Hancock has been repeated pressed on the issue, but he has ducked the question without even suggesting how employers need to be penalized, if they didn’t adhere to ensure safety standards for workers.
UK is one of the few countries to have come out rather quickly from the lockdown, while it has reported the third most cases of infection going up to 2 million and deaths upto 30,000.