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Risks

issue no 63 - 20 July 2002

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

CONTENTS

Risks is the TUC’s weekly online bulletin for safety reps and others, read each week by over 4,500 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.

ACTION

Get involved in European health and safety week

Every year, the European Union holds a week of action in October (the actual date varies around Europe) focusing on a theme, and this year it’s stress, between 14 and 20 October. The TUC has a stress week action team at trade-union backed Worksafe, tel. 01535 664462, and they will be producing materials for the week, as well as running a major national conference and, most importantly, collecting details of and stimulating union and local activity. There are several ways you could get involved:

  • let Worksafe know what you are planning to do, so they can log it and put it on the TUC European week webpage so that everyone else knows, and can copy your idea if it’s a good one!

  • attend the national conference on Monday, 14 October at TUC headquarters in London - details will follow in future issues of Risks , but put the date in your diary now! or

  • arrange with your employer to do a joint inspection of the workplace for stress-related hazards during the week (or if they won’t work in partnership, do it yourself). You could use your own union’s guidance if they have such a thing, or use the 'body mapping' process explained at the Hazards webpage, or use the TUC’s Stress MOT, which will be released in September

FEATURE: STRESS

Union demands harassment action after suicide tragedy

Postal union CWU has called for a campaign to make the industry harassment free after a report showed a black Birmingham Mail Centre worker had been driven to suicide. The report from mail giant Consignia concluded that 26-year-old Jermaine Lee took his own life after enduring constant bullying at the depot where he worked. CWU said it was 'horrified' at the finding, and although mainly management grades were implicated, added every postal employee has a duty to act to eliminate harassment and bullying from the workplace. CWU deputy general secretary John Keggie said the case illustrated why its major education campaign on this issue over the past two years had been necessary. He added that a union 'harassment hotline' had received over 6,000 calls since its inception in November 2000. John Keggie said this 'is proof of a devastating problem within the industry" and called on management to join the union in a campaign to make sure the postal industry is "free of all intimidation, bullying, racism and harassment". He concluded: 'The memory of Jermaine Lee deserves no less."

Organisational interventions for work stress

A new HSE-backed contract research report presents a risk management approach to the reduction of work stress, and shows that union involvement makes interventions work. The report uses six organisational case studies and is based on a programme of research conducted for HSE by the Institute of Work, Health and Organisations, University of Nottingham Business School. TUC stress officer Tom Mellish said: ' While any action by employers is welcomed, these case studies prove yet again that the close involvement of the workforce and their union representatives improves significantly any intervention to deal with workplace hazards such as stress."

  • Organisational interventions for work stress - A risk management approach, Contract Research Report CRR 286/2000. The web version of this report is available free and has been split into two sections, the main report (approx 3.6 mb) and the case studies and appendix (approx 4.8mb). These files are large - for information about expected download times see HSE’s FAQs pages. Or from HSE Books

GMB Euroweek update

The latest GMB Health and safety matters gives an update on the European Week of Safety and Health 2002, and encourages GMB safety representatives to organise an event during the week, including a body mapping session. GMB says with the European Week of Safety and Health only four months away - 14-20 October - it’s time to start organising events in your workplace or branch and provides an action plan for safety reps. The union says GMB will be focusing on stress - the theme for the week - and body mapping. It adds that HSE is now developing management standards to help in the control of stress at work. The standards will be piloted from 2003 to 2005.

UNION NEWS

Two years on: Unions really revitalise health and safety

Unions have made a massive contribution to the government’s two year old Revitalising health and safety strategy, a TUC report reveals. Union initiatives on Revitalising, launched in June 2000, include awareness raising, joint work with employers’ bodies to set new ambitious safety targets, the development of health and safety 'partnerships' with employers and liaison with government ministers. Several of the initiatives have won UK and international awards, and have resulted in dramatic, measurable improvements in workplace safety performance. TUC health and safety specialist Owen Tudor commented: 'unions are talking the themes of Government and HSC policy on health and safety, and turning them into better working environments at the workplace.'

Bullying did not deter just strikers

Widespread intimidation by councils did not deter over threequarters of a million from the first national strike involving blue and white collar workers for 23 years and the largest ever industrial action by women workers. Prior to the action TGWU national organiser Jack Dromey, chair of the TGWU-UNISON-GMB joint negotiating committee, said a TGWU "bully-watch survey" had shown there had been widespread intimidation. "It is immoral for Councils to intimidate low paid workers,' he said, adding: 'The threats of privatisation, redundancies, cuts to pension, use of the disciplinary process and dismissal of those who speak out will not work. The more Councils menace, the stronger becomes the determination of their employees to take a stand.' Further industrial action has been scheduled for August and September.

Tube strike for safety

A safety strike on London Underground closed almost the entire Tube network for a day. The RMT union action was in protest at proposals to use private companies for maintenance work. It says the plans are not safe and adds the company has failed to consult properly with unions. RMT general secretary Bob Crow said there should be no moves towards the privatisation of the Tube until investigations into the Hatfield and Potters Bar rail crashes are complete. London Underground proposals to avert the strike were dismissed by RMT London regional organiser Bobby Law as 'nothing more than window-dressing' with the company failing to reach agreement on safety consultation. He said: 'To offer us a cosy chat on a limited number of items when our safety reps have told them that proper consultation could take as long as a year shows just how far they are from the real world.'

Amicus calls for rig copter safety enquiry

Eleven workers have died after a Bristows S76 helicopter carrying rig workers ditched into the sea in a high impact crash. Rig workers’ union Amicus called for an enquiry. The helicopter, chartered by Shell UK, left Norwich on Tuesday with nine workers and two crew on board, flew to the Clipper platform, a gas rig in the North Sea, and then continued to the Santa Fe Monarch gas drilling rig, crashing about 25 miles off the Norfolk coast on this final leg of the journey. Roger Lyons, Amicus general secretary, said: 'We would like to see an enquiry swiftly convened to investigate how this tragedy occurred and to look at what can be done in the future to prevent such a tragic loss of life.' He added: 'This crash is a tragedy that will leave 11 families devastated, Amicus send our sincerest of condolences to those families.' The Department for Transport said Shell UK has suspended use of their Bristows S76 helicopters pending the initial findings of the accident investigation. The accident is the latest in a series of helicopter tragedies hitting the offshore oil industry.

Shop crime threat to retail staff

'Your safety comes first' is the message from shopworkers’ union Usdaw. The latest issue of the union’s Arena magazine highlights the disturbing rise in violence against retail staff. Usdaw members tell harrowing stories on how shoplifters under the influence of drugs are plaguing the industry, often lashing out and causing serious injury to frontline staff.

OTHER NEWS

PM is asked to help asbestos victims

An MP has warned that people suffering from asbestos-related diseases who worked for a former UK asbestos multinational may not live long enough to receive compensation. Payments for Turner and Newall workers are being delayed by court action in the US to wind up the firm's parent company, Federal Mogul (Risks 39). Michael Clapham, MP for Barnsley West and Penistone, has called for the compensation used for victims of mesothelioma during a previous legal battle to be used again. At prime minister’s questions on 17 July he asked Tony Blair: "Will you now consider extending the pneuomoconiosis compensation scheme to cover those claimants who have made claims against Turner and Newall?" Mr Blair said the government was considering the issue, adding: "We have also been in discussion, as a government, with the administrators and we understand they are looking at ways in which urgent claims can be dealt with prior to the conclusion of the administration of Turner and Newall."

RSI nerve damage proven

Research commissioned by the HSE and undertaken with union collaboration has found a link between RSI and abnormalities in the way sensory nerves work in the arm. Researchers found the fingers of RSI patients were less sensitive than those of office workers without the condition. HSE’s Ron McCaig said: "This research found that there is evidence of a modest loss in peripheral nerve function in RSI patients and that office workers who do a lot of keyboard work demonstrate similar but not as marked effects. These findings confirm the results of previous more limited studies and will be used to develop Health and Safety Commission's priority programme which aims to reduce work-related musculoskeletal disorders." TUC’s Owen Tudor said: 'Study after study shows clear as day that RSI is real, it’s painful and it’s not going away. Unions will prevent RSI where we can, work in partnership with employers and designers where they will, and fight for fair compensation for victims when the worst happens.'

Fine day for construction

Nine construction companies were fined a total of more than £28,000 in an HSE flurry of prosecutions for breaches of site safety regulations. The prosecutions took place at City of London Magistrates’ Court on 10 July and represented one of the largest number of cases HSE has brought to court in one day, and followed a week-long construction safety blitz in London between 29 April and 3 May this year ( Risks 51 ). HSE’s blitz revealed that many of the capital’s construction sites still have poor health and safety working standards. Enforcement action was taken against almost two-thirds of the sites visited.

Toulouse blast triggers HSC rethink on ammonium nitrate

The September 2001 explosion in an ammonium nitrate stack at a factory in Toulouse, France that killed 30 people revealed a major incident could be caused by a smaller amount of ammonium nitrate than HSC previously thought ( Risks 21 ), prompting a review of ammonium nitrate storing in Great Britain. HSC has proposed amending the Notification of Installations Handling Hazardous Substances Regulations 1982 to lower the notification threshold of ammonium nitrate from 500 tonnes to 150 tonnes. These changes would affect some farmers, fertiliser manufacturers, importers, distributors, agricultural suppliers, and ports and docks. TUC’s Owen Tudor said: 'it only takes a small amount of ammonium nitrate to go missing for the alarm bells to go off - the Oklahoma bomb used just 25 tonnes! We want people holding stocks to ask themselves - is it worth sitting on a time bomb, or should we just get rid of the stuff?'

Union-backed research tracks paper mill accidents

The major injury rate in the paper industry in the mid-1990s exceeded that of the construction industry, with 10 paper mills accounting for about 30 per cent of the major injuries. In 1996, prompted particularly by the Graphical, Paper and Media Union (GPMU), the Paper and Board Industry Advisory Committee (PABIAC) decided to sponsor research to test this hypothesis that differences were linked to different standards of safety management and safety culture in different mills. Fieldwork was carried out by the Health and Safety Laboratory at 12 paper mills to look at the standards of safety culture, safety management systems, and technological risk and to correlate them with accident statistics. GPMU is backing an industry wide Making Paper Safely initiative.

New European agreement on teleworking

Representatives of the Europe’s 'social partners' have signed a framework agreement on teleworking. Employers and unions are now committed to an agreement that includes employment rights and health and safety clauses. The agreement confirms that all Euro health and safety laws will be applied to teleworkers. It adds that the employer will inform teleworkers 'of the company's policy on occupational health and safety, in particular requirements on visual display units.' A further clause says: 'In order to verify that the applicable health and safety provisions are correctly applied, the employer, workers' representatives and/or relevant authorities have access to the telework place, within the limits of national legislation and collective agreements. If the teleworker is working at home, such access is subject to prior notification and his/her agreement. The teleworker is entitled to request inspection visits.' In the past, the TUC has advocated 'virtualSRs' - safety reps who are available to teleworkers online.

INTERNATIONAL

Australia: Work hours on the bargaining agenda

Unions in the Australian state of Victoria are to make excessive working hours a major bargaining issue. "Unions will be discussing how hours of work can be made a major bargaining priority when they are negotiating new enterprise agreements over the next year," said Leigh Hubbard, secretary of the Victorian Trades Hall Council. Over half a million Victorians work more than 45 hours a week, most in manufacturing, transport and professional or managerial positions. The Trades Hall has called unions together to share information 'and to campaign actively on the issue.' Leigh Hubbard said: "Some of the hours and shift arrangements have serious occupational health and safety implications and are damaging to family life, leisure and rest time." He added: "We are putting employers on notice and hope that they will appreciate why excessive hours are a hazard."

Australia: Safety summit a hit with unions

New South Wales unions have embraced the outcomes of a Safety Summit and have called for the event to be repeated on a regular basis. The state government-convened conference called together stakeholders from 11 industry groups to discuss and agree to recommendations for improving the occupational health and safety performance of each sector. Patricia Fernandez, an organiser with the AMIEU union, said the summit went "a long way in repairing some of the damage caused by the introduction of the new Workers Compensation Act" and urged the government to "look carefully" at the recommendations made for safety enforcement agency WorkCover and the government. These included establishing a Safety Towns programme across the state and introducing an accreditation system for contractors undertaking government work. Unions also praised the NSW government's commitment to form a special taskforce within WorkCover to investigate workplace deaths, a move proposed by unions (Risks 61).

Canada: Millions in foundry asbestos disease payouts

Successful asbestos compensation claims for former Holmes foundry workers now total Canadian $11 million (£4.5 million) after a Canadian $275,977.30 (£113,000) lump sum and a monthly payment to the widow of a worker who died of an asbestos related cancer. The union CAW has filed 430 claims of which 212 have so far been allowed and seven denied. The remaining 211 claims are awaiting compensation board decisions. Another 400 files are being reviewed and documentation is being prepared for additional claims. CAW worked with ex-Holmes employees, their families and top Canadian union health and safety campaigners Margie Keith and Jim Brophy to use body and risk mapping and old photos to reconstruct conditions at the long-closed Ontario foundry. Even the milkman who delivered to the plant contracted asbestos related disease and a child, the son of a worker, died of mesothelioma after exposure to fibres on his father's clothes.

Greece: Call for action after fourth Olympic village site death

Olympic village officials in Greece have demanded that construction companies bolster safety measures or face legal consequences after a fourth worker was killed on the building site. About 1,500 workers at the village called a 48-hour strike after the latest death, when a 32-year-old Romanian man was killed after falling off a crane. The union GSEE said it was supporting the strike. "GSEE denounces this unacceptable situation that costs human lives, especially at a project that concerns the Olympic Games,' the union said. Greek Premier Costas Simitis has warned construction companies they face expulsion from the 2004 Olympic Village building site if they do not improve safety measures.

USA: Black coal miner's life in his own words

Bob Armstead was a gentle man in a rough profession. A black miner in decidedly white West Virginia, he toiled in a place where coal companies had recruited tens of thousands of blacks for jobs everyone else thought were too dangerous. "Some said the black coal dust was a race equaliser," he wrote. "They said we were all black because of the coal dust, so blacks and whites blended, and there was less prejudice in a coal mine. I really didn't see it that way." Armstead's story, Black days, black dust, released earlier this year, has become the first published memoir of a black American coal miner. It says blacks were nudged out, and those who remained were generally low-level labourers in the most dangerous areas of the mine. Armstead retired in 1987, succumbing to lung cancer in 1998 aged 71.

USA: Court rejects attempt to derail state ergo rules

A US Superior Court judge has rejected a business group's lawsuit against Washington State over an ergonomics rule designed to prevent musculoskeletal injuries at work. After studying the ergonomics rule for an entire year, an independent panel of ergonomics experts determined unanimously that the rule was understandable and ready for implementation. The court concurred with that assessment. Some 50,000 workers suffer ergonomic-related injuries every year in Washington state, costing the state workers' compensation system around $400 million, over £250 million, annually. Enforcement of the rule will begin in 2004. US companies poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into the WE CARE Coalition (Washington Employers Concerned About Regulating Ergonomics) in an attempt to defeat the rule. They have vowed to appeal. A national US ergo rule was repealed as one of the first acts of the Bush administration, after massive lobbying by employers’ groups (Risks 47).

RESOURCES

HSE information sources

HSE has published an updated address and contact list for its newly reorganised services. HSE’s field inspectors are based in a series of regional offices, from where they provide the workplace health and safety advice and enforcement service. In addition, 'HSE Infoline' provides a public enquiry service. HSE also has a national construction division . An HSE workers’ webpage was created in response to a TUC request, and provides advice targeted specifically at employees.

  • Infoline

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!

National Simon Jones Campaign film tour, 29 June to 11 August

Groups across the country have got together to organise a unique film tour highlighting the dangers of increasing casualisation in the workplace. The film Not this time - the story of the Simon Jones Memorial Campaign chronicles the death of Simon Jones on his first day as a casual worker - and the fightback. The 20-date film tour has its first British date at the Glastonbury festival on 29 June on the same bill as Billy Bragg and Mark Thomas.

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:

North West

COURSES FOR SEPTEMBER TO DECEMBER:

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

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 (4,200 words) issued 20 Jul 2002

This page http://www.tuc.org.uk/workplace/tuc-5262-f0.cfm
printed 23 May 2012 at 09:09 hrs by 38.107.179.234