News from HSE’s Revitalising Network Newsletter:
“From 1 September 2009, the content of HSE’s series of priced publications will be made freely available online through the HSE website. Initially around 100 of the most popular titles will be available in a fully accessible ‘web‐lite’ format. It is expected that the remaining titles will be converted to this format by 31 March 2010. Further information will be available in due course.”
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VDU Workstation/Display Screen Equipment Checklist for Safety Reps…
Consulting Employees on Health & Safety…
An overview of employers’ duties to consult with their employees on health and safety matters.
Hand-Arm Vibration…
Updated advice for employees.
Provision of Welfare Facilities at Fixed Construction Sites
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The TUC has issued a new guide for safety reps on Noise at Work. This briefing document gives information to health and safety representatives on what the law is and what they can do to ensure that their employer does not put the hearing of their workers at risk.
Where there is an issue of noise exposure it is important that employers get competent advice. Noise control is more that checking levels with a meter and issuing ear plugs. Controlling noise requires professional help and expert advice. Employers should consult with health and safety representatives over the arrangements for the appointment of competent people.
Health and safety representatives should also be aware of the training and information arrangements where there is any potential risk and should ensure that their employer has given all their workforce appropriate training and information.
Health and safety representatives can identify if there is a problem with noise by carrying out a survey with workers who may be affected or by using body and risk mapping techniques. They can also do a special inspection that concentrates on noise.
Health and safety representatives should report their concerns and those of their members to management in writing.
Download the guide here:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/noiseatwork.pdf
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The TUC has produced a guide to risk assessment. It says the new resource provides safety reps with the tools to ensure their employer has done a suitable risk assessment and taken appropriate measures to implement the measures required. TUC adds that the guide ’should also help safety reps to challenge the employer if they do not do a suitable assessment or do not act to remove the hazards identified in the risk assessment.’
TUC guide to risk assessment [pdf]
TUC guide to inspections [pdf]
TUC risk assessment courses
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Retail union Usdaw has produced a guide for safety reps working in warehouses. ‘Distributing safety’ says 10,000 work-related accidents in storage, warehousing and road haulage were reported to health and safety watchdog HSE in 2005/6. Over 1,700 of these accidents were classified as major injuries such as fractures and amputations. The main causes of deaths are being run over by workplace vehicles and falls from height. The union says it has over 20,000 members working in the sector. The guide contains guidance on slips and trips, manual handling, vehicle movements, lift trucks, falls from height, work in chillers and freezers, storage systems and welfare.
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TUC’s action plan, ‘Safety reps: A charter for change’, calls for:
• Safety enforcers to ask all employers how they consult with their workforce
• A campaign to show employers the value of consultation and remind them of their legal obligations
• More support for safety reps from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE)
• A recognition that the union model is the most effective one in protecting the health and safety of workers
• Free access to all official approved codes of practice (ACoPs) and guidance for safety reps
• Increased training for both HSE and local authority inspectors on the role and function of safety reps
• Greater enforcement of legal consultation requirements
• New sanctions against employers who deny safety reps paid release for training
• Penalties on employers who victimise a safety rep
• A new legal duty on employers to respond to issues raised by safety reps
• A duty on enforcing authorities to react to a complaint from a safety rep when their employer has not responded adequately
• A specific requirement on employers to consult safety reps on risk assessments and controls arising out of them
• An extension of Regulation 8 of the safety reps’ regulations to cover other industries with large numbers of short-term, temporary ’self-employed’ or freelance workers
• An extension of the ability of safety reps to act outside their immediate workplace or employer in certain circumstances
• The right for safety reps to stop unsafe and dangerous work
• A legal requirement on all employers with more than 20 employees to have safety reps and all employers with more than 50 employees to have a safety committee.
• Continuation of the Workplace Advisers scheme in construction
• A national worker adviser scheme for small and medium sized firms, using union appointed and supported safety reps
Safety reps: A charter for change – full document [pdf]
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A union safety rep on London’s Tube system who was prevented from fulfilling his health and safety role by London Underground has won thousands of pounds in compensation at an employment tribunal. London Underground was found to have ‘wilfully and deliberately’ flouted health and safety law by refusing to allow Paul McCarthy, 47, to inspect four tube lines. The tribunal said it could see ‘little if any attempt’ by London Underground to comply with health and safety law when it prevented Mr McCarthy from inspecting the Hammersmith and City, District, Metropolitan and Waterloo and City lines. As a health and safety representative it was his role to inspect the Tube network to check that it was a safe working environment for all staff. The tribunal, which awarded Mr McCarthy £11,500 plus costs, said it was surprising that senior management had not attended the employment tribunal to explain why they had decided not to comply with the law. It also found that London Underground’s defence of the claim had been ‘misconceived and unreasonable’. Mr McCarthy’s union representative, ASLEF district organiser Steve Grant, commented: ‘ASLEF will continue to defend all our members’ health, safety and welfare industrially – and if needs be, legally – regardless of where they work or what their operational grade. We will be asking the Health and Safety Executive to consider prosecutions for the people responsible for these breaches and asking LU what disciplinary action they are taking against them for compromising their employees’ safety.’
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The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in partnership with Unite published a research report that evaluates the effectiveness of involving safety representatives in delivering health and safety initiatives in the workplace.
http://www.amicustheunion.org/default.aspx?page=7086
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Most workers won’t blow the whistle
26 November, 2008 — handsignsAs reported in the Risks Newsletter 372…
Fewer than one in every three workers would blow the whistle on their employer if they broke health and safety laws, according to the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). A YouGov poll commissioned by IOSH found that only 28 per cent of people would report their company or organisation to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) if it was in breach of health and safety legislation. The survey of 1,332 employed people from across Britain found that 35 per cent would report their line manager or supervisor to their boss if they felt there was a risk they or a colleague could get hurt at work. Almost threequarters (74 per cent) said they would tell their line manager or supervisor if they felt there was a risk they or a colleague could get hurt at work. And just 50 per cent said they would tell their colleagues if they felt there was a risk they or a colleague could get hurt at work. Five per cent said they wouldn’t do any one of these. The poll found workers massively under-estimate the numbers killed and injured at work each year. ‘The fact that more than two-thirds of people said they wouldn’t blow the whistle on their employer for doing something illegal suggests a few things,’ said IOSH president Ray Hurst. ‘It could be that people are very loyal to their employers or, more likely, that they’re scared of the consequences if they get found out having told. It’s also quite possible that people don’t know how to report to the HSE.’
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