For every person who wins compensation for repetitive strain
injury there are another 50 suffering in silence according to the TUC.
It claims that only 3,000 people of the 150,000 who suffer
from RSI each year managed to make a successful case last year.
The TUC calls for businesses to work in partnership with
union safety reps on positive prevention programmes and rehabilitation for
sufferers, with compensation as a last resort.
Owen Tudor, TUC senior health and safety policy officer said
RSI costs British businesses £1 billion a year through loss of production and
skilled workers.
Employees most at risk are those who work on small assembly
lines doing rapid packaging or food processing, and those who use a keyboard or
mouse.
A third of all workers say that their working conditions
require them to repeat the same sequence of movements all the time or nearly
all the time.
Tudor said, “RSI is a very painful and debilitating
workplace disease, which can end careers and ruin lives. The number of workers
receiving compensation for RSI is just the tip of the iceberg, compared with
the number actually suffering.”
By Katie Hawkins
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