TRAD UK Supports Workers' Memorial Day 2019

2019 marks the third year of TRAD UK proudly supporting Workers Memorial Day, which is held annually on 28th April. Workers’ Memorial Day has always been to “remember the dead: fight for the living” – it is commemorated throughout the world and is officially recognised by the UK Government. It’s an opportunity for us to remember all those killed through work but at the same time ensuring that such tragedies are not repeated.

We are very proud of our excellent health and safety record, but we’re never complacent. As one of the foremost scaffolding groups in the UK, we constantly evaluate our work practices to strive to be always at the forefront of OH&S compliance, innovation and good practice. This led to us developing our own highly effective Play It Safe initiative – to tackle the behavioural aspect of safety in the scaffolding industry, and confront the culture that leads to operatives neglecting health and safety guidelines. Play It Safe is a key initiative in our ongoing campaign to create a safer working environment – for our team, our clients’ operatives, and the general public – wherever we’re working. We have also implemented our “Visual Standards” initiative to ensure that we operate to the highest possible standards. The visual guide’s pictorial examples – taken from best practice on our own sites and using our own equipment – ensure that everyone including Estimators, Contracts Staff, Contracts Supervisors, Scaffolders and Labourers can visualise and understand best practice and put it into place on all of our projects.

In recognition of the significant hazards and risks that scaffolders are exposed to every day, when erecting, altering or dismantling scaffolding, our trade body the National Access & Scaffolding Confederation (NASC) produced Safety Guidance SG4 in 2000 as ‘scaffolding industry good practice’ for work at height. It is noteworthy that “since SG4’s inception, there has been an 82% reduction in the frequency rate of falls from height” (NASC). While SG4 has saved lives, there are still unfortunately falls from height, and therefore we at TRAD decided to go beyond the minimum standards detailed in SG4 to further secure the safest working environment for all our scaffolders, by stipulating the erection of advanced double guardrails on ALL scaffolds, including non-working lifts. TRAD are a long standing member of the confederation and the NASC achieved zero fatalities last year (indeed there has only been one fatality in the last twelve years).

To mark Workers’ Memorial Day, office staff and operatives across the country from TRAD Scaffolding, TRAD Hire & Sales and TRAD Safety Systems wore purple ribbons and high vis vests. The profit from the sale of Purple Ribbons goes to support the work of FACK – Families Against Corporate Killers, which supports families of those killed by work.