HSENI launch migrant worker booklet

The Health and Safety Executive for Northern Ireland (HSENI) has launched a new safety booklet for migrant workers that relies solely on pictures to get across key safety messages.

The booklet which will be widely distributed is aimed particularly at migrant workers in the quarrying, construction and farming sectors.

HSENI Chairman Peter McKie said the booklet was an important step to addressing the needs of the growing numbers of migrant workers in Northern Ireland, for whom English is not their first language.

“It is fitting that in this the European Week of Safety and Health that HSENI is publishing a booklet which is aimed at ensuring that migrant workers understand how to keep themselves and their fellow workers safe in some of the most high risk work sectors in the country," Mr McKie.

"That said this should not be seen as absolving employers from exercising their duty of care to these workers. Indeed everyone particularly gang-masters need to understand that migrant workers have the same right to a safe and healthy workplace as everyone else in Northern Ireland and as such HSENI will be doing its best to ensure that this is the case.”

Copies of the booklet, or any of HSENI’s current range of leaflets, can be obtained by contacting HSENI’s One-2-One Helpline on free phone 0800 0320 121.

(MB/GB)