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Economics, government & businessOccupational HealthWellbeingOpinion

The Black years: a costly lesson to learn

by Personnel Today 25 Feb 2009
by Personnel Today 25 Feb 2009

Just as the government agrees a cunning plan to get people back to work, the whole exercise is hijacked by greedy bankers robbing the poor to give to the rich and feathering their own penthouse pads. I bet the Department for Work and Pensions is hopping mad, but will they penalise the perpetrators? Of course not. It’s likely that many are friends and relatives – what an embarrassing dichotomy.


It’s all a bit like watching an elaborate game show: just as numbers of unemployed were falling, whoops – up they go again. I expect the suits in Whitehall are scratching their heads and wondering where the money’s coming from to pay for it as there are only a few coppers left rattling around in the coffers of the Exchequer. They could get the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) enforcement police to start doing what they’re employed to do and impose substantially inflated fines on all health and safety misdemeanours, taking companies just to the brink of bankruptcy – don’t want to close them down altogether think of the cost.


They could of course, compulsory purchase OH nurse time, increasing our working week to sort out this unemployment mess, or at least those that pretend to be sick. But if there are no jobs to get them back to, what’s the point?


Recently we’ve all been talking about the Black Review, and in the future, no doubt these present times will now be referred to as the ‘Black years’.


Who would have thought that nice woman would inadvertently be seen as a spectre looming large over the world of health and work like some 21st century Punch cartoon in one hand the gift of ‘good work’, and in the other, a form for jobseekers allowance?

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