Why workers need - and deserve - protection from rogue employers
dailyrecord.co.ukWhen people are injured they can recover compensation by making a personal injury claim against an insurance policy.This is true for all sorts of incidents - whether it's a road accident, a clinical negligence case or even an industrial disease claim against things like asbestos.But what happens if someone has an accident at work and their employer has no insurance?Gordon Dalyell, Partner at Digby Brown Solicitors, has campaigned for more than 10 years on this very issue and he believes the solution is clear - and has been obvious for nearly 80 years!
So here he explains the background and how families could be protected in the future...For more than 50 years workers - and their rights - have been supported by the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969.This legislation makes it a legal requirement for all employers to have special insurance policies in place to protect workers, and indeed themselves, from liabilities that arise from accidents or occupational diseases.For workers, it gives a fair and direct route to recovering rightful damages but for the employer, it also means they don’t have to compensate staff out of their own pocket - it’s the insurer who pays.These regulations go hand-in-hand with other protective steps like making sure workers have PPE, safe practice rules around issues like working at height and even equipment maintenance. But even after five decades, there are still employers who do not follow the law. The Health & Safety Executive (HSE) estimates 40,000 are injured at work every year but the alarming part is that only a small percentage of these incidents are reported by employers.In a 2022/23 report, the HSE found just 5,600 non-fatal injuries were officially reported.This
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