A message from Sergio Menéndez, Regional President, Cemex EMEA….  As each of you know, Health and Safety is our top priority because nothing is more important than making sure our employees, contractors and others who interact with us are kept safe at all times. I’m deeply saddened, however, that four people lost their lives in separate incidents this year in connection with our EMEA operations – a 37-year-old employee, a 39-year-old contractor, and two third parties, 46 and 38 years old. I invite you to observe a one-minute silence with your teams as a mark of respect and to reflect on the sad loss for the families, friends and colleagues of those involved.

Personally, I’m deeply distressed by this, especially because two incidents involved working on moving machinery.  These types of incidents are unacceptable, and we must do everything we can to prevent such tragedies ever happening again.  As some of you may be aware, site isolation audits are currently being carried out in every site and I urge all relevant teams to make sure this is done in a thorough and timely manner.  In addition, we are going to launch a dedicated regional-wide isolation campaign, but in the meantime please take the opportunity to make sure isolation procedures are robust in your site.

I would like to remind everyone of the need to always stop and think before performing a task using the ‘Take 5’ process and to always remember that your family is waiting for you every day.  I also want to make it clear that there is no business or production need that is worth an injury of any kind.  Please speak up if you see someone at risk of injury – let’s all look after ourselves and each other.

Please take a moment to remind yourselves of our Safety Essentials – you can find them on the UK News download page:  Safety Essentials poster (458 downloads)