Securing UK Workplace Health and Safety Protections After Brexit: A Comprehensive Readjustment to Ensure Compliance with International Norms

据最好的估计，每天大约有140人死于工伤或直接因工作而感染的疾病。这相当于一年有5万人。数百万人生活在与工作相关的伤害和疾病中，精神和身体上的疾病都有，而许多人还没有意识到他们在工作中暴露在有害物质中，因此会出现虚弱的症状。该项目将阐述英国在离开欧盟后如何遵守国际法，因为它适用于工作中的健康和安全。它通过提出以下研究问题来做到这一点：英国退欧后的职业安全和健康监管(包括工作时间的管理)如何最好地解决英国与工作相关的伤害、疾病和死亡的高水平？英国退欧后的职业安全和健康监管如何促进英国企业的竞争力和效率？与此同时，我们如何才能阻止无良雇主让福利体系、NHS和纳税人背负其不完善的职业健康安全政策的受害者，并逃避他们失败的真正财务后果？英国退欧后的职业安全和健康监管如何才能阻止和扭转长期以来被误导的工作场所保护“逐底竞赛”，以追求被误导的雇主游说并由他们在政府中的代表提出的短期利润？该项目旨在探索如何通过批准国际劳工组织职业安全与健康公约和工作时间公约，以及通过修改英国与欧洲委员会的欧洲社会宪章的关系，有效地“巩固”现有和拟议的保护措施，使未来的政府不能轻易破坏或撤销这些保护措施。长期以来，人们一直理解和接受的是，职业安全和健康保障的支出是一项投资，它不仅可以减轻不可估量的人力成本，而且从长远来看，它会获得成倍的回报；它不仅有利于雇主、国家和工人，也有利于雇主和国家。然而，那些在英国退欧后试图将英国变成欧洲的“离岸血汗工厂”的人，宣扬了一种观点，即职业安全与健康保护是扼杀生产力和盈利能力的“繁文缛节”。他们故意将过于谨慎的企业和公共当局的荒谬行为与职业健康和安全措施混为一谈--他们非常成功地将“健康和安全疯了”的神话植入了国民意识。然而，职业安全与健康是一个极其严重的问题，字面上是生死攸关的问题。它是关于阻止雇主用有毒烟雾毒害工人；关于阻止道路运输公司强迫司机每天工作15小时或每周82小时(许多人仍然公然这样做)；关于防止工人从高处坠落、被机械碾压或被行驶中的车辆撞到的简单措施和程序。它是关于监测工人，以评估他们的健康是否受到有毒物质、工作场所需求引起的肌肉骨骼状况或工作压力造成的损害。它是关于向工人支付足够的病假工资，这样他们就可以负担得起生病时不上班的费用。它旨在通过有效的检查、警告、起诉和施加劝阻处罚的制度，以及通过咨询和教育，确保采取足够的预防措施。奥什最明确的意思不是阻止人们喝热咖啡，以防他们烫伤自己或媒体上经常出现的无数荒谬的所谓的健康和安全故事中的任何一个。它也不是关于创建一个“保姆国家”或迎合“雪花”。它是为了阻止雇主杀害和残废他们的工人，并效仿OSH标准的生产率水平，并与德国和斯堪的纳维亚国家等最成功的经济体联系在一起。这就是这一奖学金的目的。

By the best estimates around 140 people die day every day as result of injuries sustained at work or as a result of illnesses contracted as a direct result of work. That is 50,000 people a year. Millions live with work related injuries and illnesses both mental and physical while many, as yet unaware that they have been exposed to damaging substances at work, will develop debilitating symptoms as a result.The project will set out how the UK can comply with international law as it applies to health and safety at work after we leave the EU. It does so by asking the following research questions:How can post-Brexit occupational safety and health regulation (including the management of working time) best address the high levels of work related injury, illness and death in the UK?How can post-Brexit occupational safety and health regulation promote competitiveness and efficiency in UK businesses? At the same time how can we stop unscrupulous employers from burdening the benefits system, NHS and taxpayers with the victims of their inadequate OSH policies and evading the real financial repercussions of their failures? How can post-Brexit occupational safety and health regulation halt and reverse what has long been a misguided workplace protection 'race to the bottom' in pursuit of short-term profit lobbied for by misguided employers and delivered by their representatives in government?The project seeks to explore how existing and proposed protections can effectively be 'entrenched' by a programme of ratification of International Labour Organisation OSH and working time Conventions and by revising the UK's relationship with the Council of Europe's European Social Charter so that future governments will be unable to easily undermine or withdraw them. It has long been understood and accepted that expenditure on OSH protection is an investment which, as well as mitigating the incalculable human cost, repays itself many times over in the long term; it benefits employers and the state as well as workers. Nevertheless, those who in the wake of Brexit seek to turn the UK into Europe's 'off-shore sweatshop' promote the idea that OSH protection is 'red tape' which stifles productivity and profitability. They deliberately confuse the absurd actions of over cautious businesses and public authorities with occupational health and safety measures - and they have been very successful in embedding the myth of 'health and safety gone mad' into the national consciousness. Yet OSH is a deadly serious matter, literally a matter of life and death. It is about stopping employers from poisoning their workforces with toxic fumes; about stopping road haulage firms from obliging their drivers to work 15 hour days or 82 hour weeks (as many still blatantly do); about simple measures and procedures which prevent workers falling from a height, from being crushed by machinery or struck by moving vehicles. It is about monitoring workers in order to assess whether their health is being damaged by toxic substances, by musculoskeletal conditions induced by the demands of the workplace - or by work induced stress. It is about paying workers adequate sick pay so they can afford not to come into work when ill. It is about ensuring adequate precautions are taken by means of an effective system of inspection, warnings, prosecutions and the imposition of dissuasive penalties, as well as through advice and education. OSH is most emphatically not about stopping people from drinking hot coffee in case they scald themselves or any of the myriad absurd supposed 'health and safety' stories which appear regularly in the press. Nor is it about creating a 'Nanny State' or pandering to 'Snowflakes.' It is about stopping employers from killing and disabling their workers and about emulating the OSH standards productivity levels and associated with the most successful economies such as Germany and the Scandinavian nations. That is the aim of this fellowship.