Thompsons Solicitors will join with fellow trade unionists around the world on 28 April to commemorate International Workers’ Memorial Day, with this year’s event focusing on those workers impacted by dangerous substances at work.

International Workers’ Memorial Day aims to highlight the preventable deaths of workers across the world. The day of commemoration draws focus to the work that still needs to be done to ensure safety in the workplace - between 2017 and 2018, 144 people suffered a fatal injury at work in the UK alone.

Events are being held across the country with a message to “remember the dead: fight for the living”. The Trades Union Congress has a list of the events taking place across the country, ranging from memorial services to musical performances.

The Workers Memorial Day theme for 2019 is 'Dangerous Substances – get them out of the workplace’. Thompsons Solicitors has worked with trade unions since the firm’s creation in 1921, holding employers to account when they injure their workers.

From winning the first industrial disease case in the UK, to the continued representation of workers who are suffering from mesothelioma contracted from asbestos exposure at work, Thompsons Solicitors has always stood shoulder to shoulder with workers to protect their health and safety rights. 

Thompsons Solicitors has been calling for employers to take hazardous substances seriously in the workplace through its Under the COSHH campaign. Thousands of workers die each year from illnesses caused by overexposure to hazardous substances at work, and the firm is looking to raise awareness of an employers’ legal duty of care to all their employees under the COSHH regulations of 2002.

This campaign runs alongside Thompsons’ Asbestos: Past but Present campaign, which gives a voice to those with asbestos-related illnesses, their families and industries.

Stephen Cavalier, chief executive of Thompsons Solicitors, said: “On Workers’ Memorial Day, Thompsons joins trade unions, workers and families across the world in remembering and honouring those who have lost their lives at work.

“No-one should go to work and not return safely. All workers must be protected against accidents and industrial disease. We will continue to campaign alongside fellow trade unionists for the strongest possible safety standards at work, properly enforced, with strong union representation in every workplace and with stringent sanctions against employers."