WORKED TO DEATH

We are all familiar with the old saw "hard work never killed anybody", but it just isn't true as can be seen from the following report."The number of people killed at work has risen to its highest level in five year, according to figures released by the Health and Safety Commision, whose strength has been cut by 1,000 over the same period. Of 241 fatalities in the last year compared with 217 the previous year, the greatest number, 77 - up 31% were on building sites. Sir Bill Callaghan, the HSE chair said the increase was disappointing. The TUC general ecretary Brendan Barber, said each death was preventable. "Increasing the likelihood of a visit from a safety inpector would make a real difference." (Guardian, 27 July) Why increase the expenditure on safety? It cuts profits and capitalism hates that! RD