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Risks

issue no 58 - 15 June 2002

Editor: Rory O'Neill of Hazards magazine. Comments to Owen Tudor.

CONTENTS

Amicus MSF section health and safety research officer

Come and work for Britain’s second largest and newest trade union and help build a new Working Environment Department to lead the trade union movement into the 21st century - details.

Risks is the TUC’s weekly online bulletin for safety reps and others, read each week by over 4,000 subscribers and 1,000 on the TUC website. To receive this bulletin every week, click here. Past issues are available. This edition contains Useful links TUC courses for safety reps Disclaimer and Privacy statement. The TUC website lists future health and safety events in What’s On - new events are covered below.

UNION NEWS

TUC tells MEPs Europe n eeds new laws, new money, new vision

The TUC is calling on Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to introduce new laws on stress and RSI and to set Europe wide targets for reductions in workplace injuries, illnesses and sickness absence. It also wants a reversal of the 80 per cent cut in the health and safety staff of the European Commission that has left just 24 people running the European Union's health and safety system. TUC general secretary John Monks said: "If Europe is going to compete better in the global economy, we can't burn out our workers, or ignore the risks that come with new technologies. We need a sustainable workforce in sustainable working environments doing sustainable jobs. But the European Commission can't do all that on a shoestring - health and safety is an investment that pays off in workers' health and better business." The TUC's briefing for MEPs, who are due to attend European Parliament hearings on 19 June to discuss the EU safety plan, lists the TUC’s top ten priorities for action by MEPs.

UNISON charter to tackle call centre stresses

Three quarters of Scotland's call centre workers say they are stressed at work, according to a new survey. Public services union UNISON said that almost two thirds of its members working in the industry have suffered pain in their hands, wrists or back. More than 80 per cent of the 500 people surveyed also said that background noise levels made listening and speaking a strain. A new UNISON 'Raising the standard' call centre charter outlines key union priorities, including proper training, decent health and safety standards and positive work-life balance. The survey found 61 per cent of those questioned had experienced pain in their hands, wrists, upper arms or back; 75 per cent said they felt stressed at work; and 66 per cent said that monitoring affected their stress levels. The TUC launched an 'it’s your call' campaign in January last year and HSE issued new guidance in December ( Risks 32 ).

Strike vote over safety on London Underground

Around 9,000 staff on London Underground are to vote an industrial action ballot after union safety reps raised concerns about unresolved safety questions. The Rail, Maritime and Transport union (RMT) says London Underground is ignoring its safety concerns in its haste to introduce the government-promoted public private partnership (PPP). Voting started this week and will end on 24 June - a yes vote could result in a series of one-day strikes starting early July. RMT general secretary Bob Crow says safety representatives from all Tube unions have voiced concerns that the proposed PPP arrangement would be unsafe. More than 2,000 workers will transfer to private firms under the PPP plans. Mr Crow says his union has no faith in the HSE halting the PPP process. Last month the union accused the company of failing to consult on the safety implications of the PPP move (Risks 55).

Sonographers feel the strain

Sonographers, the hospital workers who do diagnostic scans, are ending up sick themselves thanks to work hazards. Research by Eleanor Ransom of the sonographers’ union SOR found 84 per cent spent over six hours a day scanning patients and were suffering as a result. Her report says 55 per cent suffered disturbed sleep because of musculoskeletal pain and 40 per cent had taken sick leave. In 61.8 per cent of cases, risk assessments were carried out - but only 5.5 per cent before the injury presented itself. In over a third of cases there had been no risk assessment. Poor ergonomics, bad posture and lack of rest breaks were cited by staff as main reasons for the health problems. The report recommends regular risk assessments, more breaks, less pressure and better job design.

Firms should help sick workers return: insurers ask for views

Thousands of victims of workplace injury and illness are being let down by uneven and fragmented rehabilitation services, says a consultation document issued by the Association of British Insurers (ABI) with the TUC. Getting back to work says Britain now lags behind other industrialised countries in providing rehabilitation, with 27,000 people each year forced to give up work forever. John Monks, TUC general secretary said: "People who are injured or ill should be able to keep their jobs and get back to them as soon as possible…Making retention and rehabilitation happen will require leadership and partnership. If unions and insurers can work this closely together, then every stakeholder must get on board and join the debate."

TUC welcomes Blair welfare project

The TUC has welcomed the Prime Minister’s statement on welfare reform. John Monks, TUC general secretary, said: "Unions believe in employment, and we argued that paid work was the best route out of poverty long before it was a popular message for politicians.' He added the increased emphasis on rehabilitation was also a positive step. "Any moves by government to increase access to rehabilitation - a key element of Beveridge's vision for the welfare state that has never been fulfilled - is welcome. Work should be adapted to workers rather than forcing workers into jobs that cause or worsen their injury or illness. It shouldn't just be about rehabilitation, though. Government needs a joined up approach to prevention, rehabilitation and compensation."

OTHER NEWS

Standard exposé of unsafe railway leads to inquiry

The Evening Standard says a major Railtrack investigation has been launched into its revelations about shocking safety standards on the railways. An exposé this week claimed that sub-contracted rail employees had admitted to working illegal double shifts of up to 20 hours a day and a workman in charge of site safety admitted he was so fearful of the horrific condition of the track he refused to travel by rail himself. Mick Rix, leader of the train drivers' union ASLEF, called on both the government and the Strategic Rail Authority - which has overall responsibility for Britain's railways - to study the report. He said: "The Evening Standard report seems to be a shocking indictment of the continued mismanagement of the railway infrastructure…The government and the SRA should take urgent action to end this scandal before more passengers are endangered." Bob Crow, leader of the track union RMT, said the report highlighted "appalling" standards by maintenance contractors. He said it backed union claims that the maintenance contractors were not being managed or inspected properly by Railtrack. Earlier, the HSC issued a report claiming the use of contractors did not inevitably result in poor health and safety, but stressing the need for Railtrack to improve its arrangements for managing contractors.

HSE can read your email

Ministers have been accused of conducting a systematic campaign to undermine the right to privacy as it emerged that a host of government departments, local councils and groups including the HSE are to be given the power to demand the communications records of British telephone and internet users. At the moment only police forces, the intelligence services, customs and excise and the inland revenue can do this. The draft order is to be debated by MPs next Tuesday. Civil rights and journalists’ groups have expressed outrage at the move. Both HSE and the Environment Agency would have snoopers’ rights under the new scheme. An HSE spokesperson said: "HSE does need - for health and safety purposes - limited powers for surveillance, and powers to obtain telecommunications data. Both would be provided under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). These cover activities we have needed to undertake in the past in certain kinds of case. RIPA would make it clearer that HSE has the necessary powers." TUC’s Owen Tudor said: 'HSE’s powers to see emails should be limited to safety inspections and investigations into whether safety crimes have been committed.'

Beware - here comes the sun!

HSE has issued its seasonal warning about working in sunlight. It says exposure to the sun can cause skin damage, skin ageing and in the long term can lead to an increased risk of skin cancer. Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in the UK with over 50,000 new cases every year. The safety watchdog says people can reduced exposures by using measures including: wearing long sleeve shirts or loose clothing with a close weave; wearing hats with a wide brim; and taking breaks in the shade whenever possible.

  • HSE news release. Copies of Sun protection advice for employers of outdoor workers (ISBN 0 7176 1982 6, single copies free) and Keep your top on (ISBN 0 7176 1578 2, single copies free) are available from HSE Books

Work problems add up with age

Workers aged 45 plus are more likely to suffer work-related illness because of long-term stresses and strains at work, the HSE has found. HSE number crunchers examined available statistics to see whether there are differences in the occurrence of work-related illness between younger and older workers (or ex-workers). HSE concluded: 'We believe these higher rates are explained by the automatic tendency for the prevalence rates for persistent conditions to be greater for older people of working age, and the fact that the prevalence of conditions due to cumulative exposure to hazards will also tend to increase with age.' Diseases caused by short-term exposures (like asthma) were no more common in older workers than younger workers.

Vibration shake up on its way

The European Union has finally agreed a joint draft of a new community-wide vibration law. The directive is the first in a series of new rules on physical agents. Further directives on noise and electromagnetic radiation are in the pipeline. The final text of the directive on vibration will be published shortly in the EC Official Journal - so that means it has now, effectively, become law. TUC safety experts and union negotiators dealing with workers exposed to vibration will meet HSE officials next month to plan the directive’s implementation in Britain.

Local government workers overworked, stressed, ready to quit

Nearly 70 per cent of local government's stressed out workforce has considered leaving their jobs in the past year. The NOP Local Government Members Survey 2002, one of the largest surveys of local government staff, was commissioned by public sector union UNISON to examine attitudes to pay and working conditions. Over a quarter of members (29 per cent) worked additional hours but did not receive payment, or TOIL, for them, up three per cent from 2001. Women were more likely to work overtime for which they did not receive pay or time off. Seven out of 10 (71 per cent) felt that compared to this time last year, workload and pressure in their work area or department had increased, with a similar proportion (69 per cent) saying stress levels in their area of department had increased compared with the same time last year. Three in five (57 per cent) felt moral had got worse. A third of men (31%) had seen or experienced a physical threat by a service user in the past 12 months compared to 23 per cent of women. More than half had experienced verbal abuse by a service user in the past year.

Social partners agree broader approach to stress

Bodies as diverse as the TUC and the Institute of Directors agreed on a new, broader approach to workplace stress at a conference held in April at the Engineering Employers’ Federation. Sponsored by the CBI, TUC and HSE among others, the event was headlined Stress Essentials: Practical solutions that work, and looked for common ground as well as practical interventions at workplace level. Case studies from UNISON, Rolls Royce and Birmingham University showed that an approach which blended health and safety with good employment practices and equality measures could bear fruit. Conference attendees heard Health and Safety Commissioner Abdul Chowdry (the HSC’s stress 'champion') tell employers: 'Some employers want to take the slow approach to stress, but I have to tell them: time is not on your side. Not doing something is not an option and not knowing what to do is an excuse not a defence."

  • The report is on the TUC website (as well as EEF’s) in pdf format

INTERNATIONAL

Australia: UN honours building union drugs programme

The United Nations has chosen an Australian union project as a world leader in drug use prevention. The Building Trades Group (BTG) of Unions drug and alcohol programme is one of only 15 case studies to be selected and included in a special report to be distributed to global policy makers and practitioners by the United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention. Programme co-ordinator Trevor Sharp said: 'It works because it's designed by building workers for building workers. We asked them what they wanted and they told us.' He added: 'We've achieved what university professors and health departments have not been able to. Building workers built it. It's their programme and they should be proud of what their hard work has achieved.'

Australia: Unions demands controls as hours soar

Final submissions in a reasonable hours test case brought by Australia’s unions have been made. Union confederation ACTU wants workers to be given more control over the burgeoning amount of overtime they are being required to work (Risks 18). ACTU secretary Greg Combet commented: "Australia has the second longest working hours in the OECD. A quarter of the workforce puts in more than 50 hours - that would be unlawful in Europe… Unfortunately stress, poor performance at work and pressure on family life have also become the norm for thousands of workers. The ACTU is asking the Industrial Relations Commission to restore some balance to their lives." He said if the ACTU succeeds, people working excessive overtime will be entitled to two days break and will establish flexible guidelines on unreasonable hours. In the last year the average working week has increased by nearly two and a half hours, according to new figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics and Westpac Bank.

France: Blast boss and ex-safety chief held for questioning

The director of a chemical plant in Toulouse is among nine employees taken into police custody as part of an investigation into a deadly blast that killed 30 people and injured hundreds more. The director's deputy and a former safety chief were among those questioned by police and then detained, police said. The move comes less than a week after experts released a report suggesting safety at the AZF chemical fertiliser plant had been lax prior to the 21 September explosion, confirming union claims (Risks 21). The nine were greeted outside police headquarters with cheers and loud applause from about 100 employees and union activists. Some workers say police should go after AZF's parent company, TotalFinaElf - the world's fourth largest oil group. In February, the French government announced its plans to beef up safety enforcement and introduce new laws aimed at preventing industrial accidents (Risks 41).

New Zealand: Parties must come clean on work deaths

New Zealand’s unions are calling on all political parties to clearly state their policies and strategies to reduce the appalling death toll in New Zealand workplaces. The call from Council of Trade Unions president Ross Wilson came after latest Department of Labour statistics showed the number of workers killed in the current year (71) is almost double last year's total (39). "Given that this is the tip of the iceberg and more than 500 people die in New Zealand each year from work-related accidents and disease it is clear that we have a crisis which must be addressed with urgency," Ross Wilson said. He added that the parliamentary session had ended without any progress on the Health and Safety in Employment Amendment Bill, which includes provision for harsher penalties for safety crimes and greater rights for workers (Risks 31). "When you look past the rhetoric the reforms in this Bill are entirely consistent with similar legislation in countries such as Sweden, UK, Canada, and Australia, which have been considerably more successful than we have in reducing the toll of workplace accidents and disease during the past decade," he said.

USA: Dangerous decision on dangerous jobs and disability

The US Supreme Court has said companies don't have to hire disabled workers for jobs if they believe the job could be dangerous to their health. In a victory for employers, the justices said ChevronTexaco Corp didn't fall foul of the Americans with Disabilities Act when it denied a California man a job at its El Segundo refinery. The oil giant said the job sought by Mario Echazabal, who suffers from chronic hepatitis, would expose him to liver-toxic chemicals that could lead to death (Risks 43). "The United States Supreme Court today once again demonstrated its fundamental hostility to disability rights in the workplace," said Andrew J Imparato, president of the American Association of People with Disabilities. Disability and workplace safety campaigners say the solvents and other chemicals Echazabal was exposed to were the problem, not the worker, and that other 'healthy' workers could have suffered ill-effects from exposure.

RESOURCES

Training and action in health and safety: impact study

A new TUC report, Training and action in health and safety: the impact of TUC education and training courses on the workplace activities of health and safety representatives, is now available on the web. The report shows that most of the best trained health and safety reps return from courses and immediately get to grips with safety problems (Risks 57).

US unions get active 21st century style

US union confederation AFL-CIO has created a health and safety e-activists network. Those signing up to the list can get information on AFL-CIO safety campaigns and related issues, and can participate in union lobbying for better laws and workplace conditions. The union group aims to get millions of US workers signed up to its 'working families' e-activist lists.

Violence, bullying and stress

The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work’s factsheets on work violence, bullying and stress, designed for this year’s European week of health and safety in October, are now available online.

Women, work and health

The June 2002 Women, work and health: Third international conference has agreed priorities to bring gender and health related issues to the legal, social and political agendas. The event concluded it was necessary to: interrelate and address global inequalities and problems; integrate practice and research; and identify and fill gaps in knowledge. The conference website also has regular news updates on women and work hazards.

New checklist for motor vehicle repair

The HSE has published a new leaflet on how to prevent ill-health and accidents during the servicing and repair of motor vehicles at work. The leaflet aims to help everyone involved in the motor vehicle repair (MVR) industry to identify the main causes of accidents and ill health and gives examples in the form of a "checklist" of some of the precautions which can be taken to prevent them. The leaflet folds out so that the checklist can be used as a poster for display in garages and other places where motor vehicles are serviced or repaired.

EVENTS

Only newly announced events, events next week and very important events will be listed here in future. But there is a comprehensive listing of health and safety events on the TUC website - bookmark it for easy reference!

TUC/CCA Conference on safety law enforcement, 8 July

In January 2002, a coalition of trade unions, safety groups and families, bereaved from work-related deaths and disasters, came together around a series of demands for reform on safety, law enforcement and corporate accountability. This conference will explore this and the Government's agenda for reform. Registration costs £25.

Hazards 2002, National Hazards Conference, 6-8 September

The National Hazards Conference will be held in Manchester for the second year running. Further details from Greater Manchester Hazards Centre. There is a financial appeal to keep registration costs down, backed by the TUC.

European Week of Health and Safety 2002, 14-21 October

This year’s week will take place in Britain from 14 October, on the theme of stress - there is a special page on the TUC website devoted to the week. Unions and union branches planning Euroweek activities should contact the TUC’s stress week co-ordination team at Worksafe, tel. 01535 664462, with details of what they are doing and what support they would like. More background: European Agency and HSE Euroweek webpages.

USEFUL LINKS

Visit the TUC http://www.tuc.org.uk/h_and_s/ website pages on health and safety. See what’s on offer from TUC Publications and What’s On in health and safety.

TUC courses for safety reps

COURSES FOR APRIL TO JULY:

Wales, Scotland, North West, Midlands, South East and East Anglia, South West

For details of courses in the Northern, Yorkshire and Humberside regions, contact the TUC Regional Education Officer

Subscribe to Hazards magazine, supported by the TUC as a key source of information for union safety reps.

What’s new in the HSC/E and the European Agency.

HSE Books, PO Box 1999, Sudbury, Suffolk CO10 2WA. Tel: 01787 881165; fax: 01787 313995.

Newsletter (4,100 words) issued 15 Jun 2002

This page http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-4991-f0.cfm
printed 23 May 2012 at 09:03 hrs by 38.107.179.234