Migrant Workers
| For more information on Migrant Workers click here for the relevant chapter of the TUC guide to health and safety "Hazards at Work |
Employers have a duty under the Health and Safety at Work Act to provide all their employees with the appropriate safety training to enable them to do their jobs without risk of illness or injury. There have been a number of fatalities involving migrant workers employed in the UK.
Workplace deaths in the UK are on the increase and there's a danger that we could soon start to see more fatalities and serious injuries at work as language barriers mean safety messages are going over workers' heads.
The TUC has published a guide for safety representatives which gives advice on how they can work with migrant workers to help ensure their health and safety is protected. It can be downloaded from http://www.tuc.org.uk/extras/safetymw.pdf
Union learning reps from construction union UCATT have been helping migrant workers who speak only a few words of English improve their safety awareness by running basic language courses in a learning centre sited at the foot of the Canary Wharf Tower. The centre has proved very popular with the workers - who are mainly from Eastern Europe - and the learning reps say that a basic grasp of English can literally mean the difference between life and death for the workers on site.
Thorough, but easy-to-understand training is vital if workers are to stay healthy and safe at work. Unions are doing all they can to help foreign workers grasp the basics of English and now employers can use our leaflets to make sure the safety message is being understood loudly and clearly.
With migrant workers now employed in many UK workplaces, lots with only a limited grasp of English, TUC were anxious that safety training purely delivered in English was not being sufficiently well understood. This has prompted the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and the TUC to publish a new safety leaflet translated into 19 different languages. The new leaflets - published in Albanian, Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, Czech, Greek, Gujarati, Pashto, Portuguese, Polish, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, Tamil, Turkish, Ukrainian and Welsh, as well as English - are an attempt to improve safety awareness for this growing segment of the UK workforce.
'Your health, your safety: A guide for workers' provides information about safety rights at work, the level of safety training that workers should expect from their employers, and who they should complain to if they believe their safety is being compromised by poor workplace practices.
Copies of the leaflet can be accessed here.
The TUC has produced a leaflet for people coming to work in the UK from the eight new member countries of the European Union. The leaflet, [Working in the UK: Your Rights], gives information about your legal rights while you work here.
The most recent documents available on this subject are:
Action against rogue gangmasters soars
The number of gangmasters whose licences have been revoked has soared. Figures released this week by the Gangmasters Licensing Authority (GLA) reveal 22 gangmasters have had their licences revoked in just over the first quarter of the 2008 financial year.
PDF version available for download
29 August 2008
Advice shortfall for vulnerable workers
Hard pressed employment advisers are struggling to meet the needs of the UK's most vulnerable workers, a TUC report has revealed. The news comes as the government is seeking to reduce safety enforcement cover to many of the sectors identified in the report as particularly badly affected by employment abuses.
PDF version available for download
29 August 2008
Charter calls for migrant worker rights
Scottish employers are being urged to sign up to a charter of migrant workers' rights.
PDF version available for download
20 June 2008
TUC works for vulnerable workers
A government minister has seen a groundbreaking TUC-run project that is providing vulnerable workers in London's East End with badly needed employment advice.
23 May 2008
Vulnerable workers abuse a 'national scandal'
Two million workers in Britain are 'trapped in a continual round of low-paid and insecure work where mistreatment is the norm', according to a new report.
PDF version available for download
9 May 2008
Migrant worker misery is a pub grub ingredient
Food and snacks eaten in pubs, canteens and on trains across the country could have been prepared by migrant workers working in 'Dickenson sweatshop conditions', a union is warning clients and customers.
PDF version available for download
23 November 2007
| Older documents - 17 |  |
Back to Health and Safety.