A Birmingham law firm has joined forces with the TUC to highlight how an occupational "cancer epidemic" is killing 50 people a day.
The Health and Safety Executive claims about 6,000 (four per cent) of the country's annual cancer deaths are a result of exposure to carcinogens in the workplace.
However a survey by the TUC suggests the incidence is much higher - 24,000 or 16 per cent.
Irwin Mitchell has joined forces with the TUC in calling for the real level of occupational cancers to be recognised and the Government to implement safeguards for people exposed to hazardous materials, and for the full range of these hazards to be recognised.
The law practice highlighted the case of former Goodyear worker Colin Dyal, who was diagnosed with mesothelioma - a form of cancer which affects the lungs - in May 2002.
The 59-year-old father of two, from Shifnal, Shropshire, had worked at the Wolverhampton tyre factory for more than 30 years. He was diagnosed with cancer after he began getting pains in his shoulder, which he originally thought to be rheumatism.
Mr Dyal explained that the boilerhouse was full of asbestos, layered on the boilers and the miles of pipework which ran throughout the plant. He said: "It's pretty much the same now as it was in the 1970s and 1980s. In the 1980s a removal programme was started but there was so much and removal was expensive so this faded away. Around this time the firm also sent us for regular X-rays, but this also stopped after a while.
"They did start giving us masks and proper overalls in the late 1980s, but they never said why they were needed. I didn't realise asbestos was dangerous because I'd been around it all my life.
"No one ever told us the risks we were facing. Now I'm very angry. At the time I knew nothing about the risks, didn't even think about it."
For six months following his diagnosis, Mr Dyal took part in a chemotherapy trial using a new treatment called Alimta, which had been shown to slow the progress of mesothelioma.
However once the trial had finished, he was told the treatment would not be funded by the NHS in Shropshire. He now has to pay thousands of pounds for his drugs.
"You have to fight for Alimta, you have to fight for hospital beds for biopsies and you have to fight for appointments," he said.
"Now when I climb the stairs to go to bed, I have to sit down for five minutes to get my breath before I can lie down. I don't want to sit in front of the fire in a dressing gown waiting for it to happen."
Alida Coates, a solicitor with the Birmingham office of Irwin Mitchell, represented Mr Dyal in his legal battle
against Goodyear. She confirmed he received an outofcourt settlement for an undisclosed amount.
She said: "Whilst no amount of compensation will ever make up for Colin contracting mesothelioma, he wants others who might have been exposed to asbestos to be aware that there is legal redress against employers who fail to protect their workers."
It can take at least 20 years between exposure and the onset of symptoms before mesothelioma is diagnosed. Once labelled an 'old person's disease', it is now affecting a new generation of younger victims.
