The festive season is one of the busiest times of the year for many businesses, and as a result, many will take on temporary staff to handle the increased workload. This is especially true for industries such as transport and logistics, retail, and hospitality. Industries such as agriculture, construction, and cleaning also rely heavily on temporary workers all year round.
Keeping Seasonal Workers Safe
Under the law, all workers have a right to work in an environment where risks to their health and safety are properly controlled. The main piece of legislation is the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. This places general duties on all employers. There are numerous more specific pieces of legislation and regulations governing particular industries and workplaces, all designed to ensure workers are kept safe.
Temporary workers are subject to the same protections, even though they may be supplied by an agency, or could be what are known as, gig economy workers, where the relationship between the worker and the business can be very casual and flexible. There is no clear-cut definition of a temporary worker as they can include many different variations on the traditional employer/employee relationship.
In practice, it is usually the end user business who is responsible for the health and safety of the worker, as they will have control over the work being done, and often the premises where it is being carried out. However, if an employment agency is involved, they should be involved in the risk assessment carried out before work is started and they will also have legal obligations. The risk assessment should consider any risks associated with the work so that the agency is aware of any skills or qualifications needed by the worker to be able to do the job. They must then check that the worker meets the job requirements and give them all the information provided by the end user business before they start the job.
The Health & Safety Executive reports that all workers are more likely to have an accident in their first six months of a job than at any other time. This could be due to a number of factors including a lack of experience or training, reluctance to raise safety concerns, or unfamiliarity with the work environment and potential hazards.
Although the legislation is there to protect all workers, temporary workers are not always given the same in-depth induction training. A responsible business should provide an induction for new workers, with any hazards and risks highlighted. Temporary workers should be made aware of and provided with any necessary personal protection equipment (PPE) and told how to use it correctly. They should also be told how to report any accidents, near misses or concerns. All in all, they should receive any training needed to do their job safely.
The dilemma for businesses is how much time and effort should be invested on training workers or volunteers who may only do the job for a short time. This is where an adequate risk assessment is crucial as if aspects of the job are identified as hazardous, it is clearly extremely important that workers are fully trained and that control measures are put in place to minimise the risk of injury, given the potential consequences. The HSE has the power to prosecute businesses that breach health and safety law, and sentences for those found guilty can be a heavy fine or imprisonment.
What happens when businesses fail to protect?
Even so, sadly the correct procedures are not always followed. Temporary staff often come in at a very busy time for the business who will want them to hit the ground running and be productive as soon as possible. This can lead to corners being cut when it comes to training and making workers aware of any risks to their safety.
In May 2021, a recycling company was fined £600,000 by the HSE when an agency worker was crushed to death by a forklift he was driving. The HSE found that the temporary worker had not been properly trained, monitored or supervised. In 2015, a glass recycling plant was prosecuted and fined after an agency worker was killed on his first day of work when a forklift truck overturned and crushed him. He had been hired on a temporary 4 day contract.
Another agency worker lost his life in 2020 when he was run over by a loading shovel at a recycling plant in Hartlepool. The HSE found that the plant had failed to provide a safe route for pedestrians. The company was fined £2.15 million in January 2024. A waste management facility in Devon was fined £3 million in September 2023 after an agency worker, who was in his second week, was killed when he was crushed under a skip. While these most serious incidents rightly make the headlines, many more temporary workers sustain injuries whilst at work that are classed as less serious but can still have a devastating impact on the individual’s life.
Keeping Volunteers Safe
Receiving proper training to do a job safely can also be an issue for volunteers, who might have agreed to do some ad hoc unpaid work for an organisation or a charity. Although volunteers are often covered by the same health and safety protections as workers, organisations sometimes view them differently and apply less rigorous safety standards. In June 2024, the HSE reported on an incident in which a charitable trust was fined following the death of a volunteer whilst doing restoration work on the Wilts and Berks canal. While the trust had regularly used volunteers for gardening and clearing overgrowth, they had increasingly been using them for light construction work. The HSE investigation found that the trust had failed to ensure the safety of volunteers.
Lessons Learnt from Claims
Our colleague and personal injury expert, Laura Williamson, recently acted for a client who had been volunteering for a charity, doing winter maintenance work on a ship. He was asked to use a scaffold tower to reach the ship’s hull to sand it down. However, our client had never previously worked at height or used a scaffold tower. He was given minimal safety advice and received no training on using the tower. Crucially he was not told that the guidance when descending a scaffold tower is to raise the platform at the top, in order to climb inside it, and climb down the inside. This means there is a frame around the user as they descend, which can help break their fall if they lose their footing. Without this knowledge, our client did what anyone would do, and climbed down the outside of the tower. This involved descending a vertical ladder. Unfortunately, he lost his footing and fell around 3 feet onto the concrete floor of the boatyard, sustaining life changing injuries.
Although the charity initially said they had provided adequate training, and that there was nothing that could have been done differently to prevent the accident, with the client’s evidence we were able to show that vital training on using the scaffold tower and working at height was not given, and we were able to recover damages for our client so that he could start to rebuild his life.
How can we help you?
Receiving the right training and equipment to do a job safely should not depend on whether you do a job as a volunteer, a seasonal worker or a permanent member of staff. If you or a loved one have suffered serious work injuries because you were not provided with the needed training and equipment to avoid an incident or minimise its impact, a member of our expert personal injury team will be able to help you understand what happened and help you make a claim.
Even though claims can not turn back time, a successful claim will provide you with the money you need to meet any financial needs your injury resulted into. It can also compensate you for any moneys you lost in wages because of any time you had to take off work because of the accident.
At Enable Law we have represented hundreds of employees including volunteers and seasonal/temporary workers, who have sustained serious injury whilst at work, due to failings of their employer. If you have been affected by something similar do not hesitate to contact us to discuss your options. Call us for a free, no obligation and confidential chat on 0800 044 8488 or fill in our contact form so a member of the team can call you back at a time convenient for you.
