The Socialist 13 September 2007

Fighting Unions Need a New party

Postal workers: "We have the power!"

TUC conference: Standing up to Brown's attacks

Needed: a combative trade union movement

Iraq: Get the troops out now

Tube workers' strike scores victory

Bosses get away with murder

Nurses strike

Manchester cuts maternity services

Leeds - no more deficits and cuts

APEC summit: Thousands defy police crackdown

Overcrowded prisons, overworked staff

Keeping tabs on the millions?

A life of debt and poverty?

Tory party struggles to recapture territory taken by New Labour

Impressions of China

Robert Blincoe - a life that illuminates an age

Previous issues, etc

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Bosses get away with murder

On 28 August, two firms ICL Plastics and ICL tech were fined a paltry £400,000 after admitting four charges of negligence, which resulted in the deaths of nine workers. A further 33 workers were injured in a gas explosion in May 2004, when their factory collapsed.

Liam O Connolly, Glasgow

Lord Brodie at the High Court in Glasgow said the breach of health of safety law was at the "lower end of the scale".

How the loss of nine lives can be at the lower end of any scale is beyond belief, especially when the court heard how it would have cost a mere £405 to inspect and replace the pipeline and prevent the explosion.

The £400,000 fine is an insult to the relatives of the victims. One said: "we are devastated, absolutely devastated. I just feel as if they got off lightly".

There should be a full public enquiry into this disaster and new corporate killing laws need to be introduced to hold employers to account.

But this alone is not enough, companies such as ICL who put profit before safety should be taken into immediate public ownership.

This disaster is yet another tragic example of bosses literally getting away with murder.

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Fighting Unions Need a New party