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At the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) world congress in Berlin in May, TUC delegate and General Council Europe spokesperson Billy Hayes spoke in a sub-plenary debate on health and safety at work, explaining how British unions build the issue into their organising. 

Health and safety is a top reason people join unions and people stay in unions. Health and safety is a particularly effective organising tool. In the UK 70 per cent of new trade union members considered health and safety a 'very important' union issue - more than even for pay.

That is why the UK unions have linked organising with health and safety in a major way. On the TUC website there are a number of resources on how to use health and safety to recruit and organise members. The legal rights of safety representatives sometimes make it easier for unions to get into new areas that by using traditional issues such as pay.

We welcomed the introduction of tough new dog control laws earlier this year which the CWU campaigned for seven years to secure. For too long, postal workers were subjected to reckless dog ownership leaving them vulnerable at work and unprotected when a dog attack occurred. I am delighted that after a long and hard campaign, workers around the UK will now be properly protected under the amendments to the Dangerous Dogs Act.

And of course it works both ways. Workers need the union but it is only when a union safety rep has the support of an informed and involved membership that they can effectively secure improvements and be a part of the process of organising their workplace. By encouraging members to participate, much more can be achieved than if members expect the union to “sort things out”.

This means we must involve members in identifying issues, finding solutions and dealing with problems and dealing with problems early, when they are manageable, rather than leaving them to get worse.

We are also effective because a major part of our work is in training representatives. The TUC and unions train around 50,000 representatives a year. This is a massive amount and as a result union safety representatives and usually better trained on health and safety issues that line managers are.

Unions have used a range of health and safety issues to recruit and organise ranging from stress amongst social workers, asbestos in schools, or MSDs and checkout workers in supermarkets. Some of these campaigns have been very successful. One union branch in Wales recruited 200 members who worked for a local authority using stress as an issue.

Another example of involving workers is by conducting risk or body mapping exercises. These exercises enable members to discover for themselves what is hurting them or what is dangerous at work and involves them in the process of remedying the problem. Unions have used them to involve groups like cleaners who are traditionally hard to organise and recruit.

But we also use wider issues. Many unions have been campaigning around Rana Plaza, using that as a way of attracting a new generation of members and activists. On Workers’ Memorial Day, unions took a number of construction workers to protest outside the Qatari embassy in London over migrant workers’ rights.

And union workplaces are safer workplaces. Unions have on-the-ground knowledge that can lead to quick and easy solutions to workplace health and safety. Where employers won’t negotiate in good faith, unions cans use their collective strength to demand improvements. That is why, in the UK, unionised workplaces have half the serious injury rate to non-unionised ones, and that is a statistic we are very proud of.
 

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