A better normal

Protecting workers from Covid transmission protects our health, economy and the NHS: it’s in all our interest. It requires a commitment from the government to invest in necessary resources, and to compel employers to implement protections.

We know Covid is an airborne virus, meaning it is primarily spread through breathing in tiny particles in the air. It has thus far taken agencies and employers too long to catch up on the science and adjust worker protections accordingly – away from droplet spread toward aerosol spread prevention.

We must prepare for future pandemics, meaning long-term investment now to protect workers in the future. It’s in employer and workers’ interests: a safer workplace will see fewer absences. Long-term investment in occupational safety and health will not only reduce Covid transmission but will also help reduce the risk of other occupational hazards, too.

Risk assessments: engage the workforce

There is a legal obligation to assess and manage all risks in a workplace – and to consult with unions and/or the workforce on this process. Employers have a statutory responsibility to protect the health and well-being of their employees at work. Assessing employees’ risk is an ongoing process and must be updated in the face of evidence of new or developing risks, as often as required. For example, following evidence of changing exposure or of alternative control measures. This should be done in consultation with workers and representatives.

Risk reduction should follow the hierarchy of controls model: elimination, substitution, controls. Employers begin by eliminating the possibility of transmission by allowing people to work from home; and where this cannot be done, alter the job role so it can be done in a safer environment; then adjust the environment so it is suitably ventilated, socially distanced and so on. Personal Protective Equipment is a last resort control measure, as it is the least effective, protecting a worker only once they are in an environment where it is likely they will breathe in Covid aerosols. Employers must ‘layer’ control measures to ensure the greatest level of risk reduction and worker protection.

Unions must be engaged in the risk assessment process. Trade unions and employers must agree on how risks are managed: consulting with the workforce in the risk assessment process is key to its success. Employers should consult employees, unions, and health and safety representatives to assess workplace hazards and outline steps for mitigation in carrying out a risk assessment. There are approximately 120,000 trained union health and safety reps in workplaces across the UK. This number should be mobilised to help ensure that workplaces are safe, including workplaces with no existing union reps and unions are not recognised. Union health and safety reps should be given the opportunity to negotiate a ‘roving role’ to enter workplaces where no union is recognised to ensure compliance.

Once agreed, risk assessments and action plans must be sent or otherwise effectively communicated to the whole workforce. Workers know best how their jobs can be adapted to accommodate risk controls, and union safety reps are typically more highly trained in health and safety than their managers. An engaged and informed workforce is much more able to adhere to safety measures. Regular health and safety meetings must continue to occur. This may also mean union reps need more time and facilities to allow effective communication with their members. Risk assessments should be made publicly available, too: the government should introduce new rules to compel employers to publish workplace-wide risk assessments.

Unions must be able to continue supporting workers: employers must not unreasonably withhold access to a premises as long as the trade union gives sufficient notice.

The Government has advised employers to publish their risk assessments – the TUC wants to see this made a legal requirement to offer transparency and confidence to workers and customers, enabling them to check Covid-secure compliance.

Covid testing: keep it free

Covid testing is crucial in helping identify and remove cases from a workplace, and therefore keeping workers safe and sickness absences low. Unions have welcomed the introduction of testing in many workplaces and recognise the necessity for long-term testing.

Access to testing must be expanded. Proposals to begin charging workers for testing are flawed. Many workers will have difficulty affording tests, and this will inevitably increase the number of circulating infections. Access to rapid testing should remain free, with priority to key workers in jobs where regular contact with the public is required.

Workers testing positive must be supported to self-isolate as required, with adequate sick pay (see Section 2). Voluntary testing schemes must not be used as a means of financial penalising workers.
 The government should continue collecting and publishing the number of Covid-19 positive cases, including those reported on lateral flow devices. Understanding where Covid outbreaks are identified can help to inform where additional control measures may be required.

Face masks: improve the standard

To prevent transmission among workers who come into regular contact with the public, or where aerosol protections are inadequate, there must be a greater emphasis on effective mask-wearing. While any form of face covering helps prevent transmission to an extent, the variation is stark: studies show the wearing of a surgical face mask has a 74% higher risk rate of transmission compared with FFP2/3 standard face masks worn correctly19 ..

Britain is behind other countries in Europe in its recommendation of the use of FFP3-grade masks. For example, in some countries, respirator masks are required on public transport and in shops.  Even in healthcare in England, the use of FFP3 remains limited to a small group of workers dealing directly with Covid-19 patients. This must be rectified, with clear guidance issued to workers and employers on the scientific benefits of mask-wearing compared with face coverings. Highly transmissive virus variants require more effective equipment: FFP2/3-grade respirator masks must be worn in more environments.

Ventilation: a legal requirement

Good ventilation, where we ensure the air is renewed and refreshed regularly, is key to reducing Covid transmission risk. Every workplace risk assessment must include aerosol transmission, and outline what steps are being taken to improve ventilation where necessary.  Airborne protection is the most effective means of protecting the largest number of people from Covid transmission. The government must rapidly introduce measures to help clean the air in workplaces, including grants to allow public services and businesses to upgrade ventilation system where necessary.

Employers can immediately be using CO2 monitors to measure fresh air supply in indoor workplaces, and in cases where ventilation is poor, install air filtration units, upper room UV disinfectant and/or other protections which are easy to obtain. This must be done at scale.

The TUC supports proposals for a simple method of communicating airborne risk level, which would help reassure workers and the public, and hold employers accountable for managing risk. The Independent SAGE proposal ‘Scores on the Doors’20 .would indicate the measures in place to prevent aerosol spread in a given indoor space with an accessible graphic.

Social distancing

The airborne nature of Covid means workers keeping a distance from others remains an effective control measure. Employers should consider establishing maximum occupancy where possible, and in particular where job roles allow for remote working.

Without significant changes to travel patterns, it is not possible for social distancing measures to be in place on public transport, especially at peak times. As part of its plan for a mass return to work outside the home, the Government must provide guidance for employers, commuters and transport providers on what measures are needed to safeguard public health. Employers should be encouraged to offer flexible work options, and allow for workers to stagger shift times to avoid overcrowding on public transport.

Workers at increased risk

Certain sections of the population have been identified as being at additional risk of developing serious complications from Covid. These include those receiving immunosuppressive therapy known to make vaccines less effective. Employers should be undertaking risk assessments on an individual basis for any employee with a heightened vulnerability to Covid – this should be subject to enforcement.

Pregnancy can also suppress the immune system and so extra precautions must be taken to protect pregnant workers. Pregnant workers and new mothers have explicit additional protections in under the Management of Health and Safety at Work regulations, including a right to regular risk assessments. Employers must try to remove or prevent exposure to risks, and if not possible, offer suitable alternative employment at the same rate of pay if available. If pregnant workers cannot work because of health and safety risks, the law stipulates they should be suspended on full pay.

As of December 2021, 1.3 million people in Britain have Long Covid, according to ONS data21 .. The groups most likely to report having Long Covid are people aged 35 to 69 years, women, disabled people, those living in more deprived areas and workers in health care, social care, or teaching and education. Common symptoms of Long Covid include fatigue, shortness of breath and difficulty concentrating. Coercing workers back into work despite health concerns could risk worsening their health, as well as putting others at risk of accident and/or injury. Workers who experience lasting effects of Covid must be supported in any return to the workplace, based on medical advice. Referrals to occupational health services will be key to understanding individual’s needs, abilities and how symptoms may affect a job role.

The TUC supports a call for universal access to Occupational Health services for all workers. We also wish to see Long Covid automatically classified as a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010, and in certain sectors where there is an evidenced high correlation between job role and Covid infection, as an occupational illness. These classifications would help protect workers from discrimination, give them a right to reasonable adjustments at work and support those for whom a safety-critical role may no longer be viable because of their Covid-19 infection.

Regulation and Enforcement

Keeping workplaces safe must not rely on employer willingness alone – active and effective enforcement is key to ensuring compliance. The TUC wishes to see tougher enforcement action and more pro-active inspections in sectors where the number of Covid outbreaks remains high. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) must act quickly to apply sanctions to employers that do not risk assess for Covid-19 or fail to provide safe working arrangements. These are legal duties, and failing to meet them amounts to criminal breach, not just technical failings. While advice might work with the willing, it is no deterrent to bad employers: the HSE needs to take action – including prosecutions – against employers who do not take safety seriously.

Regulations which mandate employers to consult with unions and worker representatives must also be enforced. The TUC believes more serious safety breaches could be avoided if more employers were made to fulfil their duty of engaging the workforce in the risk assessment process.

The government and regulator should run a public information campaign to ensure workers know their rights, and employers their responsibilities. To support this, the HSE and local authority regulators who inspect workplaces need additional, long-term funding and resources.

The HSE and local authorities (the other primary workplace safety regulator) have suffered enormous funding cuts in the last ten years. In 2009/10, the HSE received £231 million from the Government, and in 2019/20, it received just £123 million: a reduction of 54% in ten years. Less funding means fewer inspections: over the same ten-year period, the number fell by 70%, and over a twenty-year period, the number of prosecutions has fallen by 91%. The Government's £14million fixed-term grant to HSE has not increased the number of inspectors. Instead, most of these funds have gone to contractors who are unwarranted, lacking a right of entry to workplaces or any enforcement powers, and they do not have the specialist health and safety knowledge of trained HSE inspectors. Long-term, adequate funding of safety regulation is required if we keep workplaces safe and ensure employers who break the rules face the necessary consequences.

Recommendations

• Risk assessments: Employers must be compelled to provide airborne protections for workers, with ventilation measures and FFP3-grade face masks. Individual risk assessments must be completed for groups of workers at heightened risk. Publication of workplace-wide risk assessments should be made a legal requirement. And publication of risk assessments must be made mandatory.
• Regulation and Enforcement: Tougher enforcement is required to incentivise robust risk management, and government must provide a new funding settlement to HSE and local authorities allowing them to invest in inspectorate capacity.
• Covid testing: expand access to rapid testing, keeping it free, with prioritisation for frontline ‘key’ workers.

• 19 See https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2110117118
• 20 See https://www.independentsage.org/covid-scores-on-the-doors-an-approach-to-ventilation-fresh-air-information-communication-and-certification/
• 21 See https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/healthandsocialcare/conditionsanddiseases/bulletins/prevalenceofongoingsymptomsfollowingcoronaviruscovid19infectionintheuk/6january2022