24.08.1995

Site safety worsens

YET ANOTHER tragedy has occurred for all building site workers. On August 1 in Ashford, Middlesex, four site workers were crushed to death under a three-storey building which collapsed.

Workers had already complained about the structural safety of the building. Reports of the building shaking as nearby trains passed date back to 1987. Yet the architects, Trowbridge Steel, have the gall to state that they do not understand why the building collapsed.

On July 31 another site worker was killed when he fell twenty feet while working on a roof in Surrey. Another fell from his ladder while working at the Woolwich Building Society in Islington. It is reported that there was no footing on the ladder.

Six workers died between July 31 and August 2 because of unsafe conditions for building workers. The days are gone when it was possible to quit the site and just go down the road for a new job.

Workers must continue the campaign to fight for workers’ justice and for the prevention of deaths and accidents in the workplace.