A UNIONISED workplace is a safer workplace, the labour movement said today, as Britain marked International Workers Memorial Day 2023.

People killed and injured at work, along with victims of occupational diseases, were memorialised at events in Leeds, Glasgow, Hartlepool, London, Cardiff and elsewhere as workers reiterated their annual pledge to “remember the dead and fight like hell for the living.”

Usdaw retail union general secretary Paddy Lillis stressed that workplace safety is a “right not a privilege” as he called on Tory ministers to reverse their crippling austerity cuts to the Health and Safety Executive.

And former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn paid tribute to “those who lost their lives building this country’s institutions and wealth.”

“In their memory, let’s defend trade union rights and stand up for those fighting for safety and dignity at work,” he added in a tweet.

Wreaths were laid by Labour’s Welsh First Minister Mark Drakeford at the National Workers’ Memorial Stone in Cardiff, by the party’s Leeds East MP Richard Burgon at a local TUC event in Yorkshire and by the union body’s health and safety wellbeing officer Shelly Asquith in Hartlepool.

In Glasgow, a memorial event was attended by councillors, members of the Scottish Parliament, trade unionists and by family members of those who had lost loved ones.

Unite’s John  Mooney, an organiser in construction, expressed fury that the Scottish construction industry would “boast about deaths halving in the last year, as if it’s something to be proud of.”

He added: “No-one should be dying at work … we shouldn’t be here talking about who died in the last year  – it should be a thing of the past.”

Magi Mackay told the story of her brother, John, who had been working with colleague Tommy Williams on a cherrypicker cutting steel pipes and furniture as part of the demolition of the SSI Steelworks at Redcar in 2019.

They were both killed outright in an explosion caused by the use of hot cutting equipment.

She said that had the proper checks been carried out before the contract was awarded, different equipment would have been used and her brother and Mr Williams would still be alive.

“Three years on, Cleveland Police are still investigating – it has been a shambles,” she said.

“A multimillion-pound site saved a few thousand pounds on a contract – and it cost my brother his life.”

The emotional ceremonies came as the TUC joined forces with occupational health and safety bodies to slam Downing Street’s widely condemned Retained EU Law Bill as “dangerous legislation which threatens to rip up key workplace safety protections.” 

The proposed law would automatically scrap thousands of pieces of European Union legislation still on the British statue book post-Brexit by the end of the year unless Parliament passes new laws to keep them in place. Workplace safety protections such as asbestos regulations are among the rules marked for deletion.

In a joint letter to ministers, the uncertain situation was blasted by 25 organisations, including the British Safety Council, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, the Chartered Institute for Personnel and Development and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health. 

A rethink on the Bill is needed to “ensure that we don’t see a return to the rates of fatal and serious workplace injuries last experienced in the 1970s and 1980s,” the letter warned. 

Last year saw 123 workplace fatalities recorded compared to 495 in 1981, which also saw thousands more deaths due to work-related ill-health and more than half a million non-fatal injuries, official figures show.

TUC general secretary Paul Nowak said: “No-one should be put at risk at work, but this government is threatening to rip up essential worker protections. 

“That would be a disaster for workers’ safety. It would allow rogue employers to gamble with workers’ health and, in some cases, their lives.

“Make no mistake – this is dangerous and reckless legislation. Ministers must step back from the brink and ditch this Bill before it’s too late.”