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A review of the safety norms and measures deployed throughout the paper industry in the UK will soon be under scrutiny by employee union Workers Uniting. These measures have come as an offshoot of serious accidents in the same industry in the US.

Workers Uniting is a global union spanning both the US and the UK, and it combines both United Steelworkers (USW) and Unite the Union. With this task of scrutinising the safety practices in the sector, Workers Uniting has undertaken the biggest ever project of this kind in the history of the paper industry.

The need for such appraisal arises from the increasing incidence of accidents and fatalities in the US among employees of the paper industry. There has been a significant decline in safety measures in the US paper industry, reports USW, which conducted a recent survey here.

The USW survey also brought a number of other disturbing trends to light. To begin with, US employers resort to significant cost cutting measures in businesses by reducing expenditure on safety measures. They also neglect safety training and worst of all, they financially reward those employees who avoid reporting accidents at workplace (see incident accident). This is a blatant means of covering up inadequacies and avoiding corrective measures, the union feels.

It is feared that such undesirable practices as rewarding employees for keeping mum may have also seeped into the UK paper industry, as many US employers also have a significant foothold in UK markets.

Speaking about this, the Assistant General Secretary of Unite, Tony Burke, said that companies are growing increasingly lethargic about safety precautions, and that the financial rewards policy needs to be sopped immediately.

Jon Geenen, Vice-President of USW, also pointed out that such problems may have already made their way into the UK paper industry. It is very necessary, he said, to show employers that Workers Uniting would not remain a mute spectator to any ill-conceived notion or practice.