Is it all going a bit too far???

[pjholybloke]

Why knock H&S unless you are an employer, it's the only protection an employee has these days to stop an employer trying to force them to do dangerous or hazardous tasks like used to happen pre factories act days.

You truly find out how good an employer is towards you when you are crippled and in a wheelchair.

Employees are quite capable of being dangerous without being forced, what some (not all) H&S legislation does is offer instant recourse to legal action even when the "victim" is obviously depriving a village of a perfectly good idiot.

"But you didn't tell me NOT to stand in a puddle of water in bare feet while stripping a live cable with my teeth!"

BTW I'm neither employee nor employer, I'm a self-employed contractor and use self-employed subbies.

Without doubt, some employers are unscrupulous and unconscientious b*****ds and need legislation to sort 'em out, but it does allow for exploitation from the other end. You just can't win.

 

[roughcaster]

With all this talk of health and safety,some of it laughable and way over the top,WHY do we send our soldiers to war without proper life-saving equipment,both bodily and mechanically? Why do we so often read that the life of a soldier or some other military person has been tragically lost,because of the failure by the MOD to provide vitally needed equipment to the front line? A real, life-saving Health and Safety issue if ever there was one.

Roughcaster.

 

[LeeJC]

The MOD introduced a system around the beginning of gulf war 1, called just in time supplying.

It's failed because suppliers aren't prepared to hold stockpiles of equipment with a possibility it may or may not be required, it's bad business in anyones eyes, i was one of those guys who turned up with a flak jacket but without the ceramic plates that are there to actually protect the vitals.

What's even funnier is that whilst UK side the MOD/Armed Forces are one of the most anal organisations as far as health and safety go, but having said that i've not once seen a risk assesment on a 5.56 supersonic bit of lead in a copper jacket but there are pages and pages on the oil to clean the bit that spits it at you.