There Is Still No Recompense for the
AMEC Tragedy
On Tyneside, one of the most shocking accidents in the
history of the river took place on December 22, 1995, when a massive pressure
explosion killed Ian Hamilton, Sean McAlindon and Steve Welford at AMEC
Construction, Wallsend, which makes oil rigs. The three pipe fitters were sent
onto the rig to work when the part of the rig they were sent to was still
pressurised under a pressure test. The following is a letter from a relative of
one of the three pipe fitters. The letter follows an interview with the
relative which appeared in Workers’ Weekly, Vol. 29, No. 14, last
year. In spite of an apology from a government minister and a promise for a
"review" of the disaster, the letter further underlines how workers
are not listened to and how the truth behind such tragedies is covered up by
the state institutions. It shows how the state represents the interests of the
monopolies like AMEC and not the workers or the relatives of the victims, and
how few people get to know about these and many other accidents and that such
accidents are happening again and again. Most importantly, it underlines the
necessity for workers to consider getting organised to be the decision-makers
in society, against the background that they are marginalised by this society
from taking control even of their own health and safety to stop such accidents
taking place.
Dear Workers’ Weekly,
Since my interview with a correspondent of Workers’
Weekly, I would like to update for your readers our struggle as one family
who suffered such a tragic loss in the AMEC disaster of 1995. It is especially
important this week as all the families have been asked by the judge to take
all the children to court in their fight for compensation against the company
which is still not sorted out five years after the deaths, and the support of
you and your readers is important to us.
After the interview in which I said that we wanted an
apology and were calling for a public enquiry I wrote a protracted statement to
the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Mr Alan Meale. Many of these
points and issues in the briefing were contained in the interview that I did.
On June 28, 1999, we finally after two and a half years
secured a meeting with the Under-Secretary of State for the Environment, Alan
Meale, and Mr Wilby, Director of HSE North East, in Westminster. I duly
attended accompanied by my MP, Mr Stephen Hepburn MP, my wife, my son and my
daughter who had lost her husband in the tragedy.
I found the Minister very attentive about everything I had
to say – one of the things being that I said that the HSE was not held in
a very high esteem in heavy industry in the North of England. I also told him
that the present way they are structured and the way they operate could leave
them as a law unto themselves and in the case of AMEC disaster how the HSE are
open to compromise. Also, I pointed out to him that although I have letter upon
letter from the HSE telling me that all the families had been informed as to
the progress and prosecution of AMEC in this case, I I could prove beyond a
shadow of doubt that this was not the case. After producing my evidence, we
received an apology from both the Minister and the Director of the HSE. This
apology had taken two and a half years to secure.
However, I put questions to them and quoted facts to them
which they did not answer in spite of having received my briefing paper some
four weeks before the meeting.
The Minister said that he had been thinking of reviewing
the HSE nation-wide and that the review would now take place. He also added
that he was disappointed that the HSE was not popular in the North East of
England and was disappointed by the fact that we still had no answers at all
after nearly four years since the tragedy. He granted us a review into the AMEC
disaster and promised us a written report at the end of the review.
I thought that this was great, that we had achieved what we
had set out to achieve. But two weeks after the meeting, the Minister, Mr Alan
Meale, was sacked, the only Minister to go in the government and Cabinet
reshuffle. I thought at the time that as long as we had had the review granted
in front of so many witnesses that the new Under-Secretary of State would
honour the promises of the previous Minister, but three weeks later I received
a third-hand answer from a civil servant, the implications of which were that
we were not going to get the review which had been promised into the AMEC
disaster.
After further representations, we have now got an answer
that the matter has been passed on to the Secretary of State for the
Environment, Michael Meacher, but we are still waiting for an answer.
I think the outcome is that however much power the HSE
wields, instead of prosecution as to the law, even as it exists now, they pick
out and choose the punishment of any big firm as long as this leaves the
impression that people will think they are doing their job properly. The
question seems to be not to prosecute big firms too harshly as long as they do
not kill too many people. This must be a government directive not to interfere
with big business and this is certainly the message from government. If this is
the case, we do not have an HSE that is unbiased but one that is politically
motivated. Although these are only my thoughts on a very serious situation, I
think I have the right to think this way. In a day and age when Tony Blair
cries out for fairness and the easy availability of government to the ordinary
man I would like to blow a hole right through that myth. It took us three and a
half years to have our questions asked in the corridors of power. Six months
later we still await the execution of these promises.
