Employee safety and employer’s liability

The most important recent piece of health and safety law was passed by Parliament in 1974 called the Health and Safety at Work Act. This Act gave added powers to the Inspectorate and is the basis of all modem statutory health and safety laws. This law not only increased the employer s liability for safety measures, but also put the responsibility for safety on employees too. 

Contractor safety orientation is another critical step in ensuring that contractor employees understand hazards related to the job, know site safety practices and rules, and are familiar with local emergency practices related to the site. Contractor safety orientation methods involving classroom sessions or video presentations can be very effective in preventing needless losses. The duty of a contractor in a host employer s workplace should be, at a minimum, to maintain the same level of safety and compliance that the host employer practices. These requests and requirements should be outlined in the scope of work and contract documentation. The host employer should also remember that the contractor s responsibility (liability) only applies to the extent to which the contractor has control of or can reasonably be expected to have control of the site. Those actions by the host employer that may create or expose employees to hazards remain the responsibility of that employer. 

An overal I statement of the duty owed by an employer to his employees is that he must take such care as is reasonable for the safety of his employees. That duty is owed to each and every employee as an individual, taking into account his own weaknesses and strengths, and is owed wherever the employee may be in the course of his employment, on or off the employer s premises. It is a duty which the employer owes personally to the employee and the employer remains responsible for a breach of that duty even if he has delegated the performance of that duty to someone else, for example to a safety consultant who might have a separate liability. The same applies if he has put his employee to work under the order of another party — McDermid v. Nash Dredging and Reclamation Co. Ltd. ... 

The various branches of law may overlap and interact. At Hazards, Bertha has a contract of employment with her employer, as has every employee and employer. An important implied term of such contracts is that an employer should take reasonable care for the safety of employees. If Bertha proves that Hazards were in breach of that duty, and that in consequence she suffered injury. Hazards will be liable in the tort of negligence. There could be potential criminal liability imder HSWA. Again, Hazards might discipline a foreman, or Bertha s workmates might refuse to work in the conditions, taking the situation into the field of industrial relations law. 

The major reasons that employers want safety-savvy chemists, (or other employees who wear a chemist s hat in their workplaces), reflect basic economic concerns. The cost of hiring a chemist or other technical graduate can exceed 100,000. (2) Any time lost to accidents represent a loss to the company. An individual with poor safety habits is a potential liability to him/herself, to co-workers, and to the company and its facilities. Such individuals who move on to supervisory positions can pass on bad habits to others. In addition to accidents and associated litigation, the possibility of regulatory fines pose another concern. 

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