It’s widely known that construction is one of the most dangerous industries in which to work. With the increasing number of migrant workers seeking employment in UK construction, employers of non-English speaking workers face new health and safety challenges.
Regrettably, last year saw a 28% increase in the number of fatal accidents involving workers in the UK construction industry, and a far higher proportion has been injured or made ill. New legislation is looking to the employer to ensure there is adequate provision of health and safety information for migrant workers.
“Foreign workers must be provided with the information they need, in a form they can understand, before they start to work” (New ECIA Guidance 2007, Employing Foreign Workers and Working with Foreign Contractors).
On April 6th 2008, The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act of 2007 comes into force, meaning that all senior management of an organisation can be held liable in cases where it is deemed that
basic health and safety management standards had not been met by their organisation.
Effectively this means, if a migrant worker has a serious or fatal accident, you will need to prove that all reasonable measures had been taken to ensure that the individual concerned was provided with adequate health and safety information, in their language where necessary.
Companies who do not offer translated health and safety documentation to their non-English speaking migrant workers are leaving the door wide open for accident and injury claims that focus specifically on the fact that translated health and safety information was not made available to them.
Translate-my-docs is a no-frills legal division of Creative Translation. We can advise and assist in every aspect of getting your health and safety, legal and contractual documentation translated. With nearly 20 years’ experience in translation, Translate-my-docs provides clear, easy to read translation into all languages, including Romanian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Russian, Lithuanian and Bulgarian.
We can adapt your current documentation and advise on exactly which documents need translation and which do not, allowing you to cover the essentials and keep costs down. We have already assisted a number of leading contractors including Laing Construction and BDL plc.
Call us on 0207 138 3817 to discuss your requirement. Alternatively, you can email us on: info@translate-my-docs.co.uk
Some Useful links:
http://www.workplacehealthconnect.co.uk