Skip to main content
Work with the NEU
TUC calls for more health and safety funding

UNION leaders today called on the new Labour government at Westminster to build on the Health and Safety at Work Act (HSWA) and provide funding for enforcement to end workplace deaths.

The 1974 Act was the first legislation to mandate health and safety in all workplaces and the TUC marked its 50th anniversary calling for Labour to build on the Acts’s success and provide new money to end all work-related deaths.

The HSWA was introduced by then Employment Minister Barbara Castle in July 1974 and was followed in 1977 by the Safety Reps and Safety Committees Regulations, which gave rights to trade union safety reps to inspect workplaces.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
trade unionists calling for insourcing of their work. Credit to Daniel Shannon-Hughes
TUC LESE Regional AGM / 18 April 2026
18 April 2026

Outsourcing is at the heart of inequality. Only collective unity in the trade union movement can topple the Establishment’s obsession with it, says SAM GURNEY

Train drivers from the Aslef union on the picket line at Euston station in London, as they are launching a wave of fresh walkouts in a long-running dispute over pay. Train drivers at 16 rail companies are holding a rolling programme of one-day walkouts between April 5 and 8, coupled with a six-day ban on overtime. Picture date: Friday April 5, 2024
TUC Congress 2025 / 8 September 2025
8 September 2025

On the eve of the 157th Trades Union Congress, MICK WHELAN, general secretary of Aslef, the train drivers’ union, celebrates victory in his campaign to get dignity for drivers at work

An asbestos warning sign, February 8, 2009
Health and Safety / 1 July 2025
1 July 2025