date: 25 October 2002 embargo: 00.01 hrs, Saturday, 26 October 2002

Attention: Industrial correspondents, health and safety journals

TUC wants what Australian safety reps have got - the power to make workplaces safer

Next weekend TUC-backed safety magazine Hazards, out (Saturday 2 November), will show how Australian union safety reps are making their workplaces safer using powers the TUC would like to see introduced in British workplaces.

Where health and safety issues cannot be resolved by other means, Australian union safety reps can serve PINs (Provisional Improvement Notices or default notices) in some states. These tell the employer what health and safety laws are being broken, and what the union wants done to put things right. If the employer doesn’t comply, government inspectors are called in to adjudicate, and if they support the union rep, the employer is legally required to comply. The TUC has already supplied British union safety reps with ‘Union Inspection Notices’ (UINs) based on the Australian model, which are being piloted as a voluntary system, but the TUC wants them to have the same status and effect as PINs.

Research by British Health and Safety Executive inspector Sarah Page and the findings of a survey of safety reps by the ACTU (the Australian TUC) show that employers almost always accept the safety reps’ recommendation without an inspector needing to call. Hazards says 'initial employer and enforcement agency reservations about PINs had been overcome, and they had become an accepted part of the workplace safety enforcement armoury.' Sarah Page’s report has been published by the HSE on their website in the 'workers’ web page' section. Hazards says that HSE 'could make workplaces safer and its own job a lot easier by trusting union safety reps to take a more active enforcement role.'

And an ACTU survey of Australian union safety reps, reported in the same issue, found that whilst only 10% of safety reps had issued a PIN, 95% say that it was effective in resolving the health and safety issue. The use of PINs is highest in warehousing (33%), construction (29%), transport (20%) and manufacturing (17%).

TUC General Secretary John Monks said:

'Union safety reps are the main resource we have which can make workplaces safer. Research already proves that workplaces with safety reps are twice as safe as ones without, but they need more tools at their disposal to make workplaces as safe as they can possibly be. Australia has a similar health and safety system to Britain, so if it works there, it will work here - British safety reps look at their Australian counterparts and say ‘we want some of that’.'

Notes to Editors:

Hazards 80 is on sale from next weekend - order copies at www.hazards.org/subscribe.htm or write to PO Box 199, Sheffield S1 4YL - a special section on the website is devoted to PINs and UINs - www.hazards.org/notices/index.htm

The HSE report Worker Participation in Health and Safety by Sarah Page is available at http://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/content/pinreport.pdf

All TUC press releases can be found at www.tuc.org.uk

A series of TUC rights leaflets are available on our website and from the know your rights line 0870 600 4 882. Lines are open every day from 8am-10pm. Calls are charged at the national rate.

Contacts:

Media enquiries: Liz Chinchen on 020 7467 1248 or 07699 744115 (pager) or email lchinchen@tuc.org.uk

Other enquiries: Owen Tudor on 07788 715261 (mobile) or at otudor@tuc.org.uk

Press release (600 words) issued 26 Oct 2002