Posted By Kesp David It is an excellent point you raise and one I suspect has been raised before. A couple of years ago I had to audit a large construction site in Lancaster. Halfway through the induction the trainer advised everyone to ‘take a break’ 30 new starts then made their way outside for much needed fresh air after being murdered by power point for an hour. The trainer insisted that we return within 15 minutes. I nodded my approval and more to the point responded to him that I understood. The rest of the new starts looked blank. Yes they were all Polish!! The poor chaps had not understood one word in the induction; saying that neither did I because the trainer was from Fife. I agree, La évaluation des risques devrait maintenant inclure une section de langue. Die Risikobeurteilung sollte einen Sprachenabschnitt jetzt einschließen. La valutazione di rischio dovrebbe ora includere una sezione di lingua. oh and Naucz mnie polskiego Kesp

Posted By garyh Another point, handing out leaflets is not "communication". An understanding is required, which is where validation eg by using validation sheets, is a bit better.....taking it further, HSE inspectors love seeing signs erected, and notices, and written RAs and Procs.......great. But, not only do none English speaking not understand them, what about pople with literacy problems? In the industry I am in, this is rife. It never seems to occur to some people that not everyone understands the written word. Overal I agree that if you cannot get the messages across (eg due to a language barrier), then you can't let them into the work area.......but watch out for discrimination claims - this is another minefield. NB I know about pictograms before anyone says anything!

Posted By Merv Newman Try putting in a safety management system where there 1000 employees from 15 different nations. It's you who has to adapt. Or get local management to adapt I talked to their current H&S person yesterday and they have not had a LTI for 10 years. I must have got something right. Merv

Posted By David .J. Minnery Thanks to those responding. It is clear that there is a need to highlight the duties of employers to their employees [and others], I did not say employees that could not speak English, but those whose first language was not English, there is a difference and it appears that some people are not sure of their responsibilities, equal opportunities policies and, or discriminatory practice. In our ever growing multicultural society we must be prepared to change attitudes and practices to include and protect everyone at work, or affected by work! Regards to all.

Posted By rjhills Perhaps we should endeavour to help those who wish to settle in GB by providing free language courses? In the USA, two languages are the norm, English and Spanish. They do not go to the lengths we do in a multicultural way, as they have been admitting aliens/refugees for 200 yrs. Perhaps we should specify to immigrants what we that we want them to be able to integrate. A large transport company I have contacts with is taking on drivers from Poland, cos they are cheap. Providing them with accommodations and transport to work for 6 months then "goodbye". If we treated indigenous employees like this we would have front page headlines. A difficult problem, as if a person cannot speak the language, he/she cannot be safe, cannot follow fire etc instructions, cannot even understand basic instructions (re stop button operation for example) For safetys sake, pehaps we should stand up to the "mobility of labour" crowd in the EC and demand that similar steps be taken to integrate people to the effort being made to deport!!!