Delegates demand that killer bosses be jailed

Conference urged the union to press the government to strengthen the corporate manslaughter legislation, which came into force in April, to give courts the powers to jail company directors.

Without these changes, the new law "will not bring justice to families of construction workers killed at the workplace through no fault of their own," it declared.

Sixty-nine building workers were killed last year, said general secretary Alan Ritchie.

"We are facing the perverse situation where the law allows for the imprisonment of company bosses for fiddling their books but not for killing their workers," he added.

North West region delegate John Shepphard noted that the pledge to introduce a law on corporate manslaughter had first been made by Labour in 1997.

"In the 11 years it has taken to bring in the watered-down new law, 814 construction workers have been killed," he said.