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Campaigns
TUC is one of the UK’s most high profile campaigning organisations – and health and safety is one of its top campaigning priorities. Trade union campaigns aim to raise awareness of issues in the workplace and put pressure on decision makers to address these concerns.
Typical campaigns focus on individual safety issues, defending existing rights and calling for new rights, or national and international days of action.
There are many different forms of trade union campaigning, for example:
- Hazards. Examples would include: Campaigns for legal asbestos controls
and for justice for asbestos victims; a successful campaign for an Approved
Code of Practice (ACoP) on asthma and an awareness raising campaign on the causes
and prevention of occupational asthma; awareness raising and hazards spotting
tools for workplace Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI); campaigns on workplace
stress emphasising the organisational causes that can be remedied by good union
safety interventions; and gender perspectives on health and safety, making sure
women’s health and hazards are taken into full account in the workplace
and in official health and safety policy and practice.
- Rights. Some TUC campaigns set out to defend health and safety rights
and others to extend them. For example the TUC/Hazards loo breaks campaign called
for a right for workers not only to have access to a toilet at work but also
to have the opportunity to use it. TUC introduced Union Inspection Notices (UINs)
as part of its ongoing campaign for greater safety reps’ rights –
including Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs), roving safety reps and greater
rights to consultation and participation.
- Events and Days of action. The largest single union day of action is International Workers’ Memorial Day, where trade unions worldwide commemorate those killed, injured or made ill by their work and campaign for the right to a safe and healthy working environment. The day is marked annually on 28 April. Other noteworthy events are the annual European week for health and safety at work and the TUC Work Your Proper Hours Day.
Links
The most recent documents available on this subject are:
Time to Change Health & Safety bulletin - CarcinogensAround 300,000 people are diagnosed with cancer in the UK every year, and every year more than 150,000 people die from the disease. Estimates of how many are caused through work vary considerably. The HSE has estimated there are around 13,500 new cas...
PDF version available for downloadDust in the workplace is not just a nuisance... It can be a killer. This factsheet looks at the what the law says about dust in the workplace, why the dust limit is too high, and why regulations need to be properly enforced.
PDF version available for downloadOfficial figures show that just under 200 workers die as a result of an injury at work each year. This is 200 too many. However, by the most conservative estimates, at least 20,000 people die prematurely every year because of occupational disease. Be...
PDF version available for downloadOne of the principles that underpin the Health and Safety at Work Act is the belief that the involvement of the workforce is crucial to achieving good standards of health and safety, and that health and safety systems work best when trade unions and ...
PDF version available for download
For health and safety laws to be effective, employers must know that if they do not obey the law they could face prosecution.
PDF version available for downloadRegular safety inspections, a maximum temperature in the workplace and far greater control of carcinogens are just some of the improvements that the TUC is calling for in a new 10 point safety manifesto.
PDF version available for download
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printed 19 May 2013 at 17:33 hrs by 184.72.91.94