Is work bad for you?
In this post-industrial age, when most jobs are in light industry, information technology and the service sector, we expect working life to be relatively comfortable and at the very least safe. We don't expect to be maimed, laid off for life or work ourselves into the ground.
Think again. In the UK there are still 1.6 million workplace injuries every year as well as 2.2 million cases of ill health caused by work. Some of these injuries wouldn’t have been out of place in Dickens’ England. Last year 350 people died as a result of building site accidents, a large increase from previous years. According to the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents 6000 people die of workplace burns, and 2000 cases of accidents involving chemicals are reported each year.
But some of the worst dangers are the hidden ones. 400,000 cases of asthma are caused by working conditions, exposure to high levels of dust or traffic pollution, and asbestos still kills over 4000 people a year. The Trade Union Congress calculates that around 1.4 million commercial and residential properties still contain asbestos. There are no regulations at present requiring owners to record its presence, meaning that builders and firefighters have no way of anticipating the problem. A not-for-profit organisation has taken the issue forward. AsbestosRegister.com is a new database launched in conjunction with the TUC, with the aim of listing every asbestos-carrying building in the country
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