ANYONE obliged to work for an employer should look closely at what happened in the clothing factory at Savar in Bangladesh because that is where this country is heading.

The starvation-level wages and almost total disregard for the safety and welfare of workers are attractive to UK retailers who make vast profits while feigning ignorance about the conditions under which they are made, described by Pope Francis as “slave-like”. You might think that this appalling catastrophe would make Tory politicians and their scribes in the right-wing press more circumspect in denouncing the “elf and safety culture”. But Coalition ministers have slipped a clause into their Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill to make it harder for injured men and their widows (or injured women and their widowers) to claim compensation. It will put the onus of proving the cause of the accident on the injured worker or his/her dependents. The burden of proof will be very high and made worse by the Coalition’s cuts to legal aid. And recent appointments at the Health and Safety Executive have meant that workers are without any effective representation on this understaffed supposed enforcer of workplace health and safety. Third-world status, here we come!

Clive Shakesheff, Lewis Way, Chepstow