Speech to ETUC Congress
Paul McCarthy
29 October 2015
Dying to work: health and safety
Paul McCarthy GMB trade union, TUC delegation speaking on
the activity report – health & safety section
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President, Congress,
I share the ETUC’s concerns and criticism of the European
Commission’s strategic framework for health & safety at
work as being “utterly inadequate”.
It was drafted with the false assumption that health &
safety policy is largely a “job done” at EU level.
We know it is not.
The strategy breaks the promise of the treaty commitment to
make progress on improving the living and working
conditions of eu citizens.
It has no ambition, no vision and fails to address many
outstanding health & safety problems and risks that our
members have to deal with on a daily basis.
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My union has launched a campaign on one such outstanding
issue, called “dying to work”.
It tackles the issue of the rights and protection of
workers with terminal illness, who face being dismissed even when they are capable of working - and denied the
choice of how to spend their final months – maybe years with dignity at work - stimulated, and with the normality
associated with work as well as the friendship and support
of colleagues which is so important to them.
Many are denied the financial benefits of death in service
and life assurance payments, and financial security of an
income for as long as this is possible.
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ETUC Congress speech
The campaign was started by one of our members, Jacci, who
found herself in just such a situation.
Her brave campaign has now moved from national to EU level,
as we call for a European Parliament amendment to the
health & safety strategy proposals to include protections
for the terminally ill.
This is a sensitive issue, but one which we sense affects
many workers and families across the EU, which is why we
were keen to raise it here at congress.
We invite other unions who may be dealing with this issue
to join us in the campaign so that we can share information
and experience and build a momentum for improving the
protections for all workers across Europe who find
themselves in this vulnerable position at such a very
difficult time.
The campaign can be found on the website at
www.dyingtowork.co.uk/our-campaign/
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