INDUSTRY UPDATE
Worktop Fabricators Stone worktops: What’s paint got to do with it?
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t’s the perpetual marketing conundrum: how ever do you reach the unreachable? The people who are simply off the radar for normal business management and safety messaging?
Caple announces the sad passing of founder, Maurice Lay
The first few cases of workplace-acquired silicosis in the UK are attracting a lot of attention, and spawning dire warnings of killer worktops made from dangerous materials. The danger, though, is not in the worktop, but in the dust created in the cutting and polishing processes that went into manufacturing it.
And the victims are not employees of well-managed, HSE-compliant professional fabricators. Rather, they seem to be indibviduakls for whom English is not their fiurst language, working for employers who have little interest in the letter of the law on health & safety.
Any dust is dangerous and unpleasant. Dust containing respirable silica is also carcinogenic. The answer to a dusty workplace is dust suppression, wet cutting, automated machinery and face-fitted PPE. What, though, when your worktop comes from a company who simply give their employees a pencil, a straight-line and an angle grinder? What can the regulator do to make sure that employee knows he’s at risk? HSE is taking a leaf out of the car industry’s book: working with the British Coatings Federation, they created a safety warning poster for staff spraying highly volatile automotive paints, warning of the need for proper PPE and well-ventilated spraty booths.
Now WFF and HSE are working together to create something similar for these young, ignorant victims of poor dust control in the worktop trade. It’s a small step. But it’s a start.
administrator@worktopfabricators.org
www.worktopfabricators.org.
t is with great sadness that the Directors and Shareholders of Maurice Lay Distributors Ltd announce the death of Founder and Chairman Maurice Lay, who has passed away peacefully at home aged 88, surrounded by his family. Maurice was without a doubt a giant of the appliance industry, leaving school at 14 and working his way to senior roles in the Dutch appliance company, Philips, before leaving to start the company that bore his name with his wife Jean. His company was formed initially to distribute Zanussi which was an unknown entity in 1977. With his good friend George Dorman, Zanussi’s Managing Director, he was hugely influential in growing the Italian brand in the UK and became their largest customer. After the acquisition of Zanussi by Electrolux, Maurice decided, with his family, to lead the company along a different path, and together they created the Caple brand which gave Maurice the satisfaction of an independent range of kitchen products without the heavy hand of a large corporation.
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Maurice refused offers of roles in the City of London and with international brands. He didn’t want to spend his time jetting across continents, preferring instead to work at the coalface - the thrill of the sale was always his greatest motivation. He was active and worked until the age of 85 and his opinion was always respected by the Directors of his company. His company and his proudest achievement remain in the safe hands of future generations of his family.
He will be missed greatly by his family, his greater family in his company and friends and colleagues throughout the industry.
www.caple.co.uk BKU JULY 2024 41
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