Global Asbestos Awareness Week 2026

Community is supporting Global Asbestos Awareness Week (1st-7th April 2026), which highlights the ongoing risks posed by asbestos in workplaces constructed prior to 2000.

Tony Blair’s Labour government introduced a ban on the purchase, sale and use of all forms of asbestos in November 1999, but exposure to the harmful fibres remains the largest cause of work-related death in Britain, claiming around 5000 lives every year. Inhalation of disturbed asbestos fibres – which cannot be seen or smelled – has been shown to lead to fatal illnesses such as asbestosis, mesothelioma and lung cancer.

Community Assistant General Secretary, Alasdair McDiarmid, said:

“As trade unionists, the health and safety of working people is one of the founding principles of our movement and should always be our most urgent priority. It remains a serious concern that so many of the factories, schools and warehouses our members work in contain harmful materials like asbestos. Global Asbestos Awareness Week is an important opportunity to highlight the grave risks associated with exposure to asbestos, and to highlight the need for employers to do much more to keep workers safe. Community will never shy away from raising concerns about workplace hazards with businesses and government, and we will always offer support to our brilliant health and safety reps who play such a vital role in protecting and reassuring colleagues on the shop floor.”

Community’s National Secretary for Light Industries and Health and Safety, Paul McKenna, said:

“When we surveyed Community members across the Light Industries sector last year, some 43% told us that there was a possibility that toxic substances like asbestos were present in their place of work, and 31% told us that asbestos had already been identified in the workplace. Whilst we acknowledge that many of the traditional industries and ageing factories our members work in are historic, that shouldn’t mean that workers should expect to be exposed to hazardous materials as they go about their duties. Global Asbestos Awareness Week is a timely reminder of the need for employers to ensure that workplaces are safe and secure environments, and this is something we’ll be campaigning on across the sector over the months ahead. Going to work and earning a living should never be a health risk.”

Community’s Operations Director and National Secretary for Education and Early Years, Helen Osgood, said:

“Every educator deserves to work in a safe and secure environment, but many of our members working across the schools estate are still at risk of being exposed to asbestos. At Community we are not prepared to accept that as the norm, and our education sector committee recently wrote to the Department for Education to stress the need for urgent and sustained attention on the prevalence of asbestos in our schools. We need to see steps being taking to ensure consistent, robust asbestos management practices are in place across all maintained schools and academies, and we also want to see progress on a long-term strategy of phased asbestos removal from the school estate. Our dedicated members, and the pupils they support, deserve nothing less.”

For more information on asbestos safety for workers, visit: https://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/workers.htm