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General Council Report 2002: Chapter 9

Issue date

General Council Report

protecting people at work

9.1 Introduction

Health and safety continues to be a major priority for people at work and therefore for trade unions. This has been the second year of the Revitalising Health and Safety strategy, sponsored by the Government and the Health and Safety Commission, and the TUC has been engaged in campaigns to strengthen the health and safety system. It promoted and supported the work of workplace safety representatives; fostered a rehabilitation and retention system, as well as dealing with a wide range of workplace hazards; raising the profile of health and safety nationally and internationally. The TUC works in partnership with unions, employers and others, especially the statutory Health and Safety Commission (HSC). The TUC also continued to hold quarterly meetings with the health and safety Minister Dr Alan Whitehead who spoke at the TUC Safety Convention 2002. In July, the TUC welcomed the decision to transfer responsibilities for health and safety from the Department for Transport to the Department for Work and Pensions but the TUC remains concerned about the strength of the Government’s overall commitment to health and safety, through the Revitalising Health and Safety strategy and the proposed Safety Bill.

The TUC has also continued to press for better compensation for victims of occupational diseases and injuries (through the courts and the Industrial Injuries Advisory Council) and has kept food safety issues under review.

9.2 Health and Safety Commission

The TUC is represented on the HSC by General Council members George Brumwell and Maureen Rooney, and Owen Tudor of the TUC office. The Commission has begun to develop a more strategic role, based on a Strategic Plan adopted during the year which sets out eight priority programmes (stress, musculo-skeletal disorders, falls from height, slips and trips, workplace transport, agriculture, construction and the health service), the ‘Securing Health Together Strategy for Occupational Health’ and the ‘Revitalising Health and Safety strategy’ which runs from 2001 to 2010. The Commission also oversees the work of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and advises Ministers on legislation.

The HSC also has a number of advisory committees on each of which are TUC representatives (see box), who are nominated through the TUC by trade unions. They are guided by General Council advice which was revised in 2001, and report back regularly through the TUC’s monthly Safety News. Safety News is sent to 400 key safety activists, including all the TUC representatives on advisory committees, union health and safety specialists, trades union councils active on health and safety matters and safety rep training course co-ordinators. Courses for advisory committee members are planned for September and October.

The seventh annual TUC Safety Convention was held in Birmingham at the NASUWT conference centre in February, bringing together union health and safety specialists and TUC members of HSC advisory committees. It was the best attended ever, and the Minister for Health and Safety, Dr Alan Whitehead, gave the keynote address.

During the year, the TUC responded to the following HSC consultations over Regulations:

· Chemical Hazard Information and Packaging (CHIP) 3;

· implementing the Chemical Agents Directive through the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health (COSHH) Regulations;

· changes to the Personal Protective Equipment, Manual Handling and Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations;

· Control of Asbestos at Work Regulations (putting in place the TUC’s demand for a duty to survey and manage asbestos in buildings - the TUC also pressed for a public register of asbestos);

· the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations (implementing the TUC’s long campaign for the removal of the exclusion of civil liability);

· the Manufacture and Storage of Explosives;

· Petrol Legislation (the TUC successfully argued against HSE proposals to remove the licensing regime for the non-retail dispensing of petrol);

· the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmosphere Regulations; and

· various Maximum Exposure Limits and Occupational Exposure Standards (under COSHH).

The TUC also responded to three HSC Discussion Documents (prioritising the work of HSC, preventing workplace transport accidents and the Occupational Exposure Limit framework), and to reviews of the HSC research strategy and HSE’s published statistics, as well as to draft Approved Codes of Practice on asbestos which gave a central role to safety reps. The HSE also consulted the TUC (and, through the TUC, unions) on a large number of guidance publications.

TUC membership of Health and Safety Commission (HSC) Advisory Committees

The TUC is represented on all HSC Advisory Committees. Representatives are chosen from a variety of trade union sources, including the General Council. Those on this list are referred to by the body which nominated them to the TUC and are the current members at the time of writing: those new since the 2001 Report are marked with an asterisk.

The Health and Safety Commission

George Brumwell (TUC)

Maureen Rooney (TUC)

Owen Tudor (TUC)

Subject advisory committees

Adventure Activities Advisory Committee

Rob Henderson (NUT)

Advisory Committee on Dangerous Pathogens

Peter Edge (UNISON)*

Pam Smith (Amicus)

Mary Watkins (Prospect)

Advisory Committee on Genetic Modification

Dot Carey (Prospect)

Julian Kinderlerer (AUT)

Tom Loeffler (Prospect)

Roger Spiller (Amicus)

Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances

Nigel Bryson (GMB)

Alistair Hay (AUT)

Bud Hudspith (GPMU)

Liz Jenkins (Prospect)

Ionising Radiations Advisory Committee (this committee was wound up in March and will become a forum meeting once a year)

John Kane (GMB)

John Miller (Amicus)

Hamish Porter (Amicus)

Guy Renn (Prospect)

Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee

Gordon Bellard (Prospect)

Barry Cripwell (Amicus)

Stephen Napier (Prospect)

Susan Parry (AUT)

Occupational Health Advisory Committee

Doug Russell (USDAW)

Claire Sullivan (CSP)

Kim Sunley (GMB)

Industry advisory committees

Agriculture

Peter Dracup (T&G)

Peter Kirby (T&G)

Barry Leathwood (T&G)

Theresa Mackay (T&G)

Ivan Monckton (T&G)

Stuart Neale (T&G)

Ceramics

John Alcock (CATU)

Allan Black (GMB)

Len McCluskey (T&G)

Garry Oakes (CATU)

Roger Pearman (CATU)

Mick Young (CATU)

Construction

Bob Blackman (T&G)

Malcolm Bonnett (Amicus)

John Connolly (UNISON)

Phil Davies (GMB)*

Ivan Moldawczuk (UCATT)

Alan Ritchie (UCATT)

Deep Mined Coal

R Young (BACM/TEAM)

Foundries

Mark Bergman (GMB)

Malcolm Bonnett (Amicus)

Ron Marron (Amicus)

Anthony McCarthy (NUDAGO)

Tim Parker (Amicus)

Alan Robson (CSEU)

Saudagar Singh (T&G)

John Walsh (T&G)

Health Services

Mick Balfour (GMB)

Mike Chapman (Amicus)

Mervyn Dawe (UNISON)

Carol Dolbear (Amicus)

Jennifer Mitchell (UNISON)

Eleanor Ransom (SoR)

Jon Richards (UNISON)

Claire Sullivan (CSP)

Higher and Further Education

Mick Balfour (GMB)

David Bleiman (AUT)

Steve Craig (NATFHE)

Barry Fawcett (NUT)*

Sharon Liburd (ATL)

Les Fountain (UNISON)*

Jo Westerman (Amicus)

Louise Wilson (EIS)*

Offshore

Fraser Adam (GMB)

Mark Dickinson (NUMAST)

Roger Jeary (Amicus)*

John Taylor (T&G)

Steve Todd (RMT)

Robert Wilson (Amicus)

Paper and Board

Malcolm Bonnett (Amicus)

Mike Eade (T&G)

Alan Harvey (Amicus)

Paul Hiett (GPMU)

Bud Hudspith (GPMU)

Ray Williams (GPMU)

Kevin Willis (GMB)

Printing

Dick Barker (GPMU)

Mike Griffiths (GPMU)

Bud Hudspith (GPMU)

George MacIntyre (NUJ)

Tom Usher (GPMU)*

Rose White (GPMU)

Railways

Jon Allen (TSSA)

Dave Bennett (ASLEF)

Mick Cash (RMT)*

Phil Dee (RMT)

Paul Reuter (Amicus)

Mick Rix (ASLEF)

Alan Tipping (TSSA)

Rubber

Maureen Armstrong (T&G)

Brian Hall (GMB)

Alan Harvey (Amicus)*

Bill Holmes (MSF)

Jim Marshall (GMB)

John Picken (T&G)

Howard Thomas (T&G)

Schools Education

Mick Balfour (GMB)

Hope Daley (GMB)

Sharon Liburd (ATL)

Peter McLaughlin (NASUWT)*

Andrew Morris (NUT)

Susan Murray (T&G)*

Louise Wilson (EIS)*

Textiles

Sheila Bearcroft (GMB)

Sylvia Burton (GMB)

Jack Firth (KFAT)

Paul Gates (KFAT)

Nick Halton (T&G)

Gordon Rudd (ISTC)

Kevin Wilson (T&G)*

Revitalising Health and Safety

The Revitalising Health and Safety strategy document was issued in June 2000 and was welcomed by the TUC and by subsequent Congress resolutions. The Executive Committee continued to receive quarterly updates on union contributions to the Revitalising Health and Safety strategy, and these were posted on the TUC website, demonstrating the scale of union activity including:

· what unions are doing to raise awareness of the strategy;

· what unions are doing to publicise the strategy in union journals;

· what progress unions are making in discussing Revitalising targets with employers or their associations;

· inviting Ministers or Commissioners to speak about Revitalising to union executives, annual conference or fringe meeting, or to visit workplaces where the union has a success story to tell in terms of partnership over health and safety

Union magazines have carried articles by TUC Commissioners and the TUC solicited and received a special article for union journals from the Chair of the Commission, Bill Callaghan, which was circulated by the TUC in autumn 2001.

Through the TUC representatives, a number of the HSC’s Industry Advisory Committees such as the Ceramics Industry Advisory Committee have adopted hard targets in response to Revitalising as well as other groups such as the Quarries Joint National Advisory Committee and the National Electricity Health and Safety Committee. The Wales TUC has endorsed union proposals to approach employers in Wales, and will be considering a joint approach to the Wales CBI and the Welsh Assembly to set targets for Wales.

As part of the follow up to the Construction Safety Summit held in February 2001 the unions, through the TUC, commissioned Jane Paul, in November 2001, to write a brochure with case studies on the development of partnerships in construction.

However, despite this continuing action by the TUC and unions, the TUC is still concerned at the lack of action by government. This message was conveyed by the TUC delegation of union general secretaries, presidents and national negotiating officers which attended a major HSC conference addressed by the then Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, Rt Hon Stephen Byers, in London in May.

The TUC highlighted action the Government needs to take to implement its own Revitalising Health and Safety strategy especially:

· introducing legislation to encourage rehabilitation for workplace injury victims, to increase penalties for health and safety offences, and to create a new offence of corporate killing

· acting as an exemplar employer by abolishing Crown Immunity from health and safety prosecutions, improving the working environment of civil servants, and only giving public contracts to employers with high health and safety standards; and

· giving the HSE and local authorities the resources they need so that there are enough inspectors, enough prosecutions and enough free guidance to deliver the Revitalising Health and Safety strategy.

The above approach was also set out in the TUC’s response to the Revitalising strategy Better Jobs for Better People: a millennium challenge, which welcomed the Government’s highlighting of the role of schools in developing better awareness of health and safety. The TUC has also produced the TUC Education Resource for Work Experience and Careers Education pack A Better Way to Work. This is in line with a motion on health and safety education remitted at Congress last year.

Partnership

TUC will continue to campaign in this area and is committed to doubling the number of published case studies of health and safety partnerships every year - two brochures of case studies have already been issued (one jointly published with the CBI) with examples from across the country and across the economy and further brochures covering public services and the North West, as well as the construction brochure already mentioned, have also been published.

Enforcement

In line with a resolution from Congress 2001, the TUC has been campaigning for better enforcement of health and safety law, in three specific ways:

· the introduction of a law against corporate killing/manslaughter;

· the introduction of a safety bill which would, among other things, increase the penalties for breaching health and safety legislation, and make all such breaches punishable by imprisonment; and

· the provision of better resources to the Health and Safety Executive and especially to local authorities so that more inspectors can be employed.

In October, the union representing HSE inspectors, Prospect, launched a major campaign for more funds for the HSE, and the TUC supported that campaign, in particular by circulating material to unions, and by arranging a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Occupational Safety and Health Group in January to hear Prospect General Secretary Paul Noon, and members of the union, speak on the need for more inspectors.

Also in January, the Health and Safety Commission published its new, tougher enforcement policy statement which directs the work of HSE and local authority inspectors, and on which the TUC had had a major influence. At the end of the month, John Monks and George Brumwell, General Council spokesperson on health and safety, joined families bereaved by work-related accidents to launch a joint TUC-Campaign for Corporate Accountability (CCA) charter calling for better enforcement of health and safety laws.

The campaign charter, which was also sponsored by several unions, bereaved family groups and health and safety organisations, covers the three key points set out above. It was widely circulated, receiving a great deal of publicity because the TUC and CCA had produced research showing how many people have died in work-related incidents in the last five years by region (a map is on the TUC website), and how many people die from work-related causes every year (over 15,000).

The TUC and CCA took the campaign to MPs in March, with a reception organised through the All Party Group, and provided briefing material for MPs of all parties. Many supported the campaign in a series of Commons debates that month. Meetings with Ministers were arranged to follow up the campaign, but could not be held due to the reshuffle.

The TUC also intervened in a number of policy developments relating to enforcement:

· in September, jointly with the Construction Confederation, the TUC issued a briefing for MEPs on the mutual EU recognition of penalties for health and safety offences. This supported Home Office proposals arising from non-payment of safety fines by Austrian and Swedish firms after the Port Ramsgate walkway disaster and the Heathrow Tunnel collapse;

· in February the TUC submitted evidence to the European Commission on Compensation to crime victims; and

· in March, the TUC published Investigating deaths at work which was a submission to the review of the protocol for liaison between HSE, Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the police after work-related deaths (followed up by Investigating work related deaths: getting it right in July, which commented on a final draft of the revised protocol).

9.3 Europe

The TUC is represented on the European Commission’s advisory committee on safety, hygiene and health at work (the Luxembourg Committee) by General Council member Maureen Rooney and Tom Mellish of the TUC office (Barbara Martin of the NI-ICTU and Owen Tudor are substitutes). The TUC is represented on ad hoc groups of the committee dealing with RSI (Nigel Bryson, GMB), chemical safety (Alastair Hay, AUT), occupational injury benefits (Owen Tudor), health services (Jon Richards, UNISON) and standardisation (Tom Mellish, who also sits on the strategy ad hoc group of the committee).

It was reported to last year’s Congress that the European Commission was drawing up a strategy on health and safety for 2002 to 2006. That strategy has now been published and the TUC has issued briefings for MEPs on the TUC response to the strategy, calling for legislation on stress and RSI. A programme of work to action the strategy is now being drawn up by the strategy ad hoc group, in consultation with the stakeholder groups on the advisory committee. The TUC supplied the expert for the EU Economic and Social Committee opinion on the strategy which was influential in suggesting a number of themes which were taken up by the Commission, including a new risk observatory function for the European Agency for Safety and Health (on the management board of which Owen Tudor represents the TUC).

The TUC developed a strong lobbying function aimed at Members of the European Parliament during the year, briefing British MEPs and the rapporteur on draft directives on asbestos, noise (where the TUC jointly lobbied with the Royal National Institute for Deaf People to secure lower action levels and more hearing tests) and vibration. A number of amendments to each directive proposed by the TUC were passed by the Parliament, and efforts continue to make sure that those amendments survive the conciliation procedure between the Parliament and the Council of Ministers. The TUC supplied the expert for the EU Economic and Social Committee’s opinion on the asbestos directive, allowing the TUC to win the support of ECOSOC and the European Parliament for a halving of the asbestos exposure limits being proposed by the European Commission.

The TUC is also taking part in a joint initiative administered by the ETUC Trade Union Technical Bureau on health and safety in small firms, with the TUC providing one of the country studies. A TUC delegation will take part in an international seminar as part of this project in Brussels in September.

During the year, three meetings were held in Belfast, Killarney and London, of the ‘Tripartite Forum’ which brings together the trade union members of the tripartite boards running health and safety in Great Britain, Ireland and Northern Ireland (with the STUC attending as an observer). The key issues discussed have been: European Union Directives; joint work to foster trade union involvement in health and safety in the EU applicant countries; and sharing experiences on safety reps. Discussions on the Forum helped to persuade the Irish HSA to publish a report demonstrating that the presence of safety reps was the main factor associated with good health and safety on construction sites in Ireland and Northern Ireland.

9.4 Safety Representatives

Trade union safety reps continue to be the main tool through which the trade unions can influence the injury and work-related illness levels in the workforce.

The TUC continued to argue that the record of safety reps justified an increase in their powers and scope particularly as safety reps and the involvement of employees was one of the key areas highlighted in the Health and Safety Commission’s Revitalising Health and Safety. The TUC has therefore continued to develop the support offered to safety reps.

Worker Safety Advisers

As reported to the 2001 Congress, the HSC agreed to the establishment of pilot studies to assess the feasibility of Workers Safety Advisers (WSAs) or roving safety reps and these got under way in April and will run until November, after which their success will be evaluated and a report made to Ministers. The function of the WSAs is to visit a range of mainly small workplaces without union organisation or arrangements for consultation with the workforce and develop their consultation arrangements. The sectors covered are construction, hospitality (pubs), the voluntary sector and light automotive manufacture, and nine WSAs have been appointed, covering areas in Scotland, the North East, North West, Midlands, Wales and London.

The TUC, in consultation with the relevant unions, drew up the process of selection, training, support and financing of the WSAs. These arrangements were posted on the TUC website together with a job description of the WSA and volunteers were invited to apply. Selected volunteers undertook training at the NEC in February and in Fife in March.

The Pilot Projects are being managed by York Consulting Limited (YCL) but the company reports to a Commission sub-committee. Up to July 2002, approximately 60 first stage visits had taken place. From these, YCL have received 41 reports from WSAs. The nature of activities reported included meetings and discussions, observing working practices, risk assessments and reviewing health and safety policies. There has been a favourable report back to date, with employers, most of whom are small employers, viewing the WSAs as a valuable source of advice and constructive criticism.

At the same time, a roving safety rep pilot has begun in the agriculture sector, under the auspices of the HSC Agriculture Industry Advisory Committee. This involves two groups, one selected by the T&G and the other by ADAS, an agricultural research and consultancy organisation, to test the effectiveness of union roving safety reps and safety consultants in improving health and safety on farms through stimulating worker involvement and consultation.

Union Improvement Notices

As reported to Congress last year, the Executive Committee had agreed to the introduction of union issued improvement notices. In November 2001, together with the TUC endorsed Hazards magazine, the TUC launched the Union Inspection Notices (UIN) to be used by safety reps as a last resort before calling in the Inspectors. Safety reps use the notices to register their complaints and to get them dealt with internally and where they believe that the law is being broken. The TUC is training safety reps in the use of UIN and will be reviewing their operation during 2002.

UINs form part of a strategy to mimic the system of Provisional Improvement Notices (which have the force of law) in some states of Australia. The other two elements are to require a response from employers and to involve inspectors. Requiring a response from employers will need legislation and the TUC is therefore proposing that this be achieved by placing a duty on employers in the revision and consolidation of the various consultation and representation regulations on which consultation is due later in 2002.

The involvement of inspectors has been provided for in the revised Enforcement Policy Statement of the HSC which was issued in January. This requires inspectors to take into account warnings which may have been given to employers that they were breaching the law, when deciding on enforcement action such as prosecutions. UINs would be a formal system of providing such warnings. They are also likely to be useful in winning compensation cases as they will help demonstrate that employers were being negligent.

Safety Reps Survey

The TUC draws regularly on the experiences of safety reps and uses the TUC biennial survey of safety reps as a key tool. Just under 9,000 trade union safety reps contributed to the last such survey in 2000. The results of that survey formed the basis for the TUC’s activity on health and safety in the following two years. The 2002 survey is currently underway and the initial results will be available in September with the full report published later in the year.

A more in-depth survey on slips, trips and falls was commissioned by the TUC. Slips, trips and falls is one of the HSC’s priority programmes. Over 800 safety reps took part in the survey the report of which was published by the TUC in August. The survey found that slips and trips were a major problem in 84 per cent of the workplaces surveyed and that in just one year there were year nearly 15,000 such incidences in which over 400 resulted in broken bones or other major injuries. The survey revealed that safety reps were using a number of innovative schemes to deal with on-going slips and trips hazards ignored by their employer. The TUC is publicising the costs to business of slips and trips and calling on the HSE to encourage employers to conduct risk assessments using their enforcement powers if necessary. The TUC has also called on trade union reps on the HSC’s Industry Advisory Committees to get their committee to develop sector specific campaigns.

Information for safety reps

The TUC has continued to develop the information made available to safety reps, and has continued to support and publicise the quarterly Hazards magazine, helping to ensure that the magazine’s website at www.hazards.org won the Labour Website of the Year award in January. A further annual update of Hazards at Work was issued in December, covering chapters on violence at work, injury reporting and investigation, personal protective equipment, eye protection, work equipment and working alone.

Keeping Well at Work: in September, Kogan Page published Keeping Well at Work - a TUC guide by Phil Pearson, a paperback book on sale through high street bookshops, mail order and from the TUC, giving advice on the most common health risks at work, and how to tackle them. This was produced in a self-help format but emphasised the value of union membership. Subjects included: tackling stress at work; workplace violence; bullying; new health issues like PMS, muscle aches and strains; what to expect from your doctor; your rights and the regulations; and personal injury claims.

Risks online bulletin: it was reported to Congress last year that the TUC had launched an online health and safety magazine, Risks, available free to safety reps and others. This has now become the main means of communication for the TUC on safety issues, having grown during the last year from 2,000 subscribers to over 4,500 (currently growing at the rate of ten a day). Risks is edited for the TUC by Rory O’Neill who also edits Hazards.

Safety rep training

In September 1999 The TUC launched the ‘TUC Certificate in Occupational Safety and Health’. Under an arrangement with the Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, safety reps who pass through the three stages of the TUC safety rep training are able to register to become Technician Safety Practitioners and use the initials TechSP after their name. To date, over 160 union safety reps have secured such professional health and safety status through TUC training.

In June the TUC published a report Training and action in health and safety by Professor David Walters and Peter Kirby which showed that the two core TUC training courses (Stage 1 and Stage 2) give safety reps:

· enthusiasm and confidence to tackle problems;

· practical skills, especially in identifying the issues of concerns to their colleagues;

· the opportunity to discuss problems with their peers from different workplaces; and

· finding information on health and safety and using it in a methodical way.

A survey of safety reps done for the report found that after attending a Stage 2 course, 89 per cent of safety reps had initiated health and safety action after returning from the course. But the figure was far lower for those who had only completed the Stage 1.

The Employment Appeal Tribunal has ruled that safety reps have a legal right to paid time off to attend Stage 2 courses, but only 40 per cent of safety reps surveyed had undertaken the course.

At Congress 2002 the TUC is launching a campaign to ensure that more safety reps take up their right to training. The TUC will also be pressing the HSE to ensure that employers fulfil their legal obligation to release, with pay, and to publicise safety reps’ rights to training with pay.

Further developments in trade union training for safety reps is dealt with in Chapter 12.

9.5 Campaigns

The TUC puts a great deal of effort into campaigns on health and safety issues and specific hazards in the workplace, especially those issues which cover the whole economy (leaving sector specific hazards to the individual unions). What follows is just a sample of the issues taken up during the year.

Occupational health

During the year the TUC has campaigned for occupational health services for all workers, a duty on employers to have a rehabilitation policy for when workers are injured or made ill, more resources for the HSE and more rights for the workplace union safety reps to work in partnership with employers to prevent injuries and workplace illnesses. In November, the TUC welcomed the launch of NHS Plus, a government scheme for providing occupational health services to (mostly small) businesses on top of the NHS internal provision for staff. In May, the TUC issued a briefing on the latest research on occupational health services. This suggested that the number of workers covered by such services at work had fallen from 12 million in 1990 to seven million in 2000, mostly as a result of downsizing of employers and outsourcing of such services.

Asbestos: the TUC continued to draw attention to the fact that the main cause of occupational deaths in Britain is the legacy of asbestos. This colours all of the trade union movement’s work on health, safety and compensation, and references to other pieces of work by the TUC are covered elsewhere in this chapter (especially in the sections on Europe and Compensation). But in terms of prevention, the TUC continued to press for the introduction of a duty on employers to survey their premises and manage the asbestos they found and for a public register to be established to ensure that everyone knows where the asbestos is (a call backed by the European Parliament in April). The Health and Safety Commission, after a second consultation which clarified who the duty holder was, and which revealed that the costs were lower and the benefits higher than expected, agreed to introduce a duty to survey and manage asbestos in July.

In advance of that, the TUC issued a joint briefing with the Hazards campaign for safety reps and others in February as a supplement to Hazards magazine. It set out the major role that safety reps would be able to play under the new HSC regulations which, together with the Approved Codes of Practice mentioned elsewhere, gave more of a role to safety reps than most Regulations. The TUC also revealed new research showing that the death toll from asbestos-related diseases was increasing faster than had been assumed, and that over 5,000 people had died from such diseases in 2001 - many more than are killed on the roads, for example. The TUC continued to be represented on the management committee of the British Institute of Occupational Hygienists’ ABICS scheme, designed to accredit asbestos surveyors once the new Regulations are in place.

Asthma: The TUC played a leading role in the HSC’s new programme on preventing asthma at work, which culminated in the adoption of an Approved Code of Practice on preventing occupational asthma, a TUC campaign stretching over a decade of obstruction by employers. The TUC is represented on the HSE Asthma Project Board by Kim Sunley of the GMB and Owen Tudor and on the occasion of the first meeting of the Board the TUC launched No substitute for action on asthma which reported the results of a survey of almost a thousand safety reps conducted by the TUC with support from the Health and Safety Executive. It found that only eight per cent of employers were substituting the asthma-causing substances with safer alternatives. The most common preventive tool being used was respiratory protective equipment (masks etc) which should be the last thing employers reach for when protecting their workforce. The TUC followed this up in May with a report showing that every week, 134 people in Britain develop asthma as a result of their work. The report coincided with the launch of a new training course for safety reps on using the new Asthma ACoP.

In particular, the TUC has been working on the subject of allergies including asthma caused by latex. This year the hosted a ‘latex summit’ in May, bringing together the main stakeholders, including unions, sufferers, health professionals, regulators and manufacturers. The report of the event, Latex allergy: a meeting of minds, was published in July, and will form the basis for a second summit in November.

Older Women’s Health: In March, as part of its continuing programme focussing on women and health safety, the TUC, together with the Pennell Initiative for Women’s Health, published a report, The Health and Work of Older Women: a neglected issue, which highlighted the fact that the health and safety of 12 million women over the age of 45 is being ignored. The report demonstrated the impact of work on the physical, emotional and mental health of this neglected group of workers and made recommendations for ensuring that their well being is actively promoted. The TUC will be using this report to direct its future activity in this area.

European week of health and safety 2001: in October, the TUC took part in this event which focused on preventing accidents in the workplace. The TUC promoted the event to unions, and circulated details of union activity in a special report called Preventing accidents the union way.

International RSI Awareness Day: the TUC marked the last day of February (the only non-repetitive date in the calendar - this year 28 February) by releasing a ‘risk filter’ for safety reps to use in determining whether their workplace had a problem with Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI) - the filter was based on materials produced for HSE inspectors. The TUC released figures showing that one in fifty workers (over half a million) suffers the symptoms of RSI. The HSE marked the day by launching new guidance on visual display units at a special event at Congress House.

International Workers Memorial Day: the TUC marked International Workers Memorial Day (28 April) with the largest ever number of local events around Great Britain including church services, dedication events, releasing black balloons, lectures, film shows and demonstrations. The events drew attention to the role that better occupational health services could play in preventing at least 10,000 deaths each year. Half of those dying from occupational diseases are suffering from asbestos related diseases and the others are dying from chemical induced cancers, lung disease and heart disease caused by stress.

Maximum temperatures: The General Council noted the motion which was remitted at last year’s Congress and have continued to press the HSC on the issue of statutory maximum temperature levels at the place of work. The Health and Safety Executive has issued guidance on working environment which highlights the need for employers to ensure that their staff are working in comfortable temperatures. For the first time it refers to heat as well as the minimum temperatures.

Passive smoking: Further to the activities reported to last year’s Congress, the TUC continues to work with the National Asthma Campaign (NAC) and Action on Smoking and Health (ASH). In September the TUC published Smoking in the Workplace. This report provides guidance and information for employers and employees on scientific, legal, health and practical aspects of developing and implementing workplace smoking policies. The TUC, NAC and ASH proposed a three-pronged approach to smoking in the workplace - recognising the impact of smoking in the workplace; understanding the legal obligations and risks; and developing a smoking policy in consultation with staff.

Psychosocial issues

Stress: The TUC has been campaigning for an Approved Code of Practice to support and

clarify current legislation on the management of health and safety which includes stress at work. This argument has not been accepted by the HSC. However the HSC did undertake to publish guidance for employees and employers in small and medium sized undertakings. These came out in the autumn. The HSC/E is also undertaking work to establish standards for the management of stress at work which the inspectors can use as enforcement tools. With TUC insistence, the HSC/E agreed to introduce an Approved Code of Practice if the introduction of the standards and the dissemination of the guidance did not significantly reduce the incidence of work related stress. The TUC has monitored the work of the HSE in this area and, with support from unions, had the employees guidance withdrawn and rewritten, after publication, as parts of the guidance would have been detrimental to the employment conditions of employees. This has now been reissued after the approval of the TUC.

In February, the TUC published the annual Focus on Services for Injury Victims survey which showed that, while the number of personal injury claims taken by unions was down on the previous year, the number of work-related stress cases had increased twelve fold with 6,428 new cases reported in the last year. Later that month a Court of Appeal ruling threw out three previously successful cases of workplace stress but the TUC made it clear, both in public statements and at conferences and seminars, that this would not alter the unions’ resolve to bring such cases where the evidence merited it.

It was against this background that the TUC announced, in May, its support for the European Health and Safety Week the theme of which is ‘Stress in the Workplace’. The TUC will be setting British employers an ‘MOT stress test’. Unions will be urged to use TUC checklists as part of the campaign to control and reduce work-related workplace stress. The TUC will hold a national conference during the week and will produce adverts for community radio stations. The TUC has retained Yorkshire-based occupational health and safety organisation Worksafe to plan and run the stress campaign in the build up to the European Week in October. Worksafe has drafted guidance and leaflets for the week and unions can contact them to elicit support for their own events. The TUC has also launched a special web-calendar of events for the week.

Bullying at Work: Seeking to highlight bullying as a major cause of stress in the workplace, the TUC established a series of regional seminars which took place in Bridgend, Manchester, Bradford, Leeds, London and Glasgow. Speakers at the seminars were from the TUC, addressing the general problems and policy issues of bullying at work, Thompsons Solicitors, on the legal implications and solutions. Equalities issues were addressed by Zahid Dar from the Consortium of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Voluntary and Community Organisations based in Bristol. The focus of the one-day events was the award-winning TUC/Industrial Society video No Excuse - beat bullying at Work and structured workshops based on modules written for the TUC by Peter Kirby. The TUC will now contact participants at the seminars to see whether the actions they identified for themselves have been put in practice.

Violence at Work: In February, the TUC called attention to the problem of workplace violence when it published the latest update in its best selling publication Hazards at Work. Assaults at work are growing at the rate of approximately five per cent every two years. The figures for 2001 reveal that 1.3 million people were attacked at work. The chapter on violence at work tells safety reps to persuade employers to recognise the problem of violence at work, encourage staff to report attacks and threats, assess the risks of violent attacks and take a series of steps to reduce or manage those risks. The TUC is represented by Tom Mellish on the Interdepartmental Committee on Violence to Staff (ICVS). This is in the second year of its three programme of work. The TUC will host a conference at Congress House on violence at work in December. This is being organised by the ICVS.

Alcohol and drugs: One of the key symptoms of stress at work is the increased use of alcohol and drugs whether legal like cigarettes or illegal like cannabis. The use of such substances are also a part of everyday life and therefore are likely to be a workplace issue. This is why during Christmas week the TUC published Drunk or Disordered. The guide looked at the implications of the use and abuse of alcohol and drugs for health and safety in the workplace. It set out practical guidance for safety reps on negotiating and developing a workplace policy and looked at the role of testing. The TUC is represented on the UK Steering Group on Drugs in the Workplace by Tom Mellish. The group is part of the Government’s ten year strategy for tackling drug misuse Tackling Drugs To Build A Better Britain and is currently engaged in monitoring a project on cascade training for employers using the national Drug Action Teams (DATS) structure. This activity is line with a motion from last year’s Congress which was remitted due to the curtailment of business.

The TUC is represented on the steering committee of the pan-European Euridice project by Tom Mellish. The European Commission funded project promotes the establishment of a workplace model for dealing with drugs in the workplace. Through the project, the TUC has been able to promote the TUC approach to alcohol and drugs at a number of European conferences. The project is trade union based and the TUC will be looking for partners in the UK in the next year to establish an Euridice intervention in the UK.

Transport safety

Rail safety: throughout the year, the TUC worked with rail unions to ensure that the HSE took note of union concerns about rail safety, including the report on Lord Cullen’s inquiry into the Ladbroke Grove disaster, and helping to publicise union reactions (for example on the Cullen Report and on the Potters Bar disaster in May - see also chapter three). Specifically, in January, the TUC issued a strong condemnation of Thames Trains’ attempt to challenge the HSE in the courts for failing to stop the company from breaking health and safety laws.

Road safety: the Work Related Road Safety Task Group (TUC was represented on the Group by Graham Stevenson of the T&G and Tom Mellish) published its report in the autumn. This called for the application of the risk assessment approach to managing vehicle and road use health and safety. Because of the focus on rail safety and the problems at the DTLR during the last year there has not been the progress on road safety at government level that the TUC would wish to see. The TUC is determined that the call for positive action in this report is not lost. The TUC has also developed training modules for safety reps which will focus reps on the particular requirements of risk management and work-related road safety. These will be available during the coming year. This year’s Congress will also see the launch of a campaign to highlight the need for managing the safety of road users at work and the enforcement of health and safety legislation in this area.

9.6 Rehabilitation and Retention

The TUC has continued to press the case for rehabilitation for those people injured or made ill at work - 27,000 of whom leave the labour market permanently every year.

In April, the TUC drew attention to the difference in the way that top footballers, like David Beckham, and ordinary workers were treated when they broke a bone in their foot. The TUC told the stories of three trade unionists (one of whom had actually broken the same bone in a very similar accident) who had received very little help, compared with the eight week rush to prepare David Beckham for the World Cup. However, the TUC also noted that one of the reasons why professional footballers receive such rehabilitation is because their union, the Professional Footballers’ Association, has negotiated such provision. In May, the PFA’s Brendan Batson spoke about the union’s struggle to secure rehabilitation from the clubs at an HSC conference on rehabilitation.

In June, the TUC joined with the Association of British Insurers to launch Getting Back to Work - a rehabilitation discussion paper seeking views on the best ways to get people back to work.

This was followed in July with the publication of Rehabilitation and retention: what works is what matters, the findings of a TUC research project looking at 1,200 workplaces, including a survey of union safety reps and nine case studies published on the website as Rehabilitation and retention: case studies. The research, conducted by Lewis Emery at the Labour Research Department and funded by the Department of Work and Pensions, demonstrated that there were seven key elements of good rehabilitation practice, including union involvement, early intervention, and the separation of sickness absence management from disciplinary measures.

Lastly, in August, the TUC issued Protecting rights, as well as people, a brief guide for trade unionists on public bodies about how to ensure that health and safety could not be used as an excuse to discriminate against disabled people or exclude them from jobs. The Disability Committee considered a draft of the guide in May.

9.7 Compensation and legal services

Where prevention fails, unions aim to provide members with a first class service to secure them compensation and the TUC continues to support unions in their work and their campaigns for improvements. The TUC kept under review the compensation recovery system, which allows the Government to reclaim benefits paid to injury victims who subsequently secure compensation from their employers, and the Home Office’s Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme, where the TUC continues to call for reform to improve the system for paying compensation.

Industrial injuries scheme

The TUC continues to be represented on the statutory Industrial Injuries Advisory Council, which oversees the scheme for paying industrial injuries disablement benefit, by Jenny Thurston from the General Council, Gordon Ifill from Amicus, Hugh Robertson from UNISON, and Owen Tudor. During the year, the Council has concentrated on reports on the occupational deafness scheme (where improvements will result, although going nowhere near as far as the TUC would want for lack of evidence) and chemical diseases (mostly resulting in a tidier and more accurate list of diseases). The TUC submitted evidence on a review of biological diseases (concentrating on latex allergies, TB and Hepatitis, as well as anthrax) and has secured a review of the prescription of Vibration White Finger, which the TUC would like widened to encompass Hand Arm Vibration Syndrome.

The TUC has also worked with the All Party Parliamentary Occupational Safety and Health Group’s asbestos sub-committee to secure improvements in the compensation for mesothelioma victims. In March, the Council agreed that mesothelioma victims would not need to be re-examined by a government medical adviser, and also that victims would receive the full benefit payable under the scheme as soon as they claimed, regardless of their state of health (although in practice, mesothelioma victims do not live long). In addition, the TUC and the All Party Group secured the re-issue of a leaflet explaining the asbestos-related diseases. This had been withdrawn by the Department of Work and Pensions in a rationalisation move.

In June, the TUC provided the chair of the Workers’ Group (Hugh Robertson of UNISON, a member of IIAC) for the preparation of an ILO protocol on work-related disease reporting, notification and compensation, based on work done in an expert group by Owen Tudor and Hugh Robertson. The protocol and a new ILO list of occupational diseases was adopted by the International Labour Conference (see also chapter seven).

Civil compensation

The TUC issued its annual focus on Union Legal Services in February, which showed that unions continued to win substantial amounts (£321 million in 2000) for their members in compensation for workplace injury and illness. It also demonstrated that the number of stress cases brought to unions (although not necessarily fought) had increased twelve-fold between 1999 and 2000, although this in fact only represented stress cases being taken at the same rate as other industrial diseases. Also in February, the Court of Appeal published a judgment on four stress cases which set out 16 criteria for deciding whether there was a case to be compensated, which were generally useful or positive (although occasionally this was misinterpreted as a defeat for stress sufferers in some newspapers).

The TUC continued to be advised by a union legal officers network which met formally three times during the year and met informally on other occasions. In particular, the network received a report, in February, commissioned by the TUC from former Lord Chancellor’s Department Minister David Lock, on the subject of the recovery of legal fees, an issue subject to a great deal of satellite litigation in the courts. The TUC had joined an action in the House of Lords in November (the Sarwar case) which dealt tangentially with the extent to which the courts could force claimants to use their existing insurance policies rather than union legal services, and David Lock’s paper set out how unions might deal with this issue in future, chiefly by making enquiries about whether such insurance existed and then demonstrating how it failed to deliver the sort of assistance that union legal services could.

The TUC also continued to fight against the call (insurance driven, but supported by elements of the judiciary dismayed by the extent of satellite litigation over costs) for fixed costs, which has resurrected itself periodically ever since the Woolf Review of Civil Justice in the mid-nineties. On this occasion, the issue surfaced at a Costs Forum run in December by the Civil Justice Council, which also proposed the abolition of the indemnity principle (something the TUC would support). The TUC subsequently participated in a process known as ‘The Big Tent’ which pulled together lawyers on both sides, judges, academics, insurers and unions, arguing that fixed costs would unbalance the relationship between claimants and insurers; that there was no evidence of general increases in legal costs (barring some rogue elements who needed to be dealt with separately); and that any system of fixed costs proportional to damages would make it more lucrative to fight cases for younger, richer workers than for older, poorer ones.

Mesothelioma compensation

As well as the benefits issues dealt with above, the TUC continued to play a leading role in the area of compensation for mesothelioma victims. It was reported to the 2001 Congress that the TUC had taken part in a successful effort to ensure that claimants whose employers were insured by Iron Trades (which, as Chester Street, collapsed in early 2001) were provided for. The Government forced the insurance industry as a whole to pay their compensation. This work was done with the All Party Parliamentary Occupational Safety and Health Group chaired by Michael Clapham. This year, the TUC has assisted in the Group’s work on following up the Chester Street issue (campaigning to secure 100 per cent payments to claimants, rather than the 90 per cent paid out by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme) as well as dealing with the further blow to asbestos victims presented by the receivership of Turner and Newall (a major asbestos company).

Finally, the TUC has assisted UCATT and other unions involved in the Fairchild case, where the High Court and then the Court of Appeal found that, because the claimant had been exposed to asbestos by more than one employer, it was impossible to say who had caused his cancer, and therefore no one could be held liable for compensation. The TUC helped keep the issue in the public eye and made clear that, while the best solution was for the House of Lords to overturn the Court of Appeal’s judgment, if it did not, then action was required by the Government. The TUC also took part in discussions with the Government about possible legislation and also about interim relief, which was provided in March by the Government extending the pneumoconiosis scheme to cover those affected by the Fairchild case, a move welcomed by the TUC. Eventually, the House of Lords did overturn the Court of Appeal and the TUC assisted UCATT to secure publicity for the case and the role of unions. The TUC issued a summary of and commentary on the House of Lords judgment, when it was published in June, as Justice for asbestos victims - thanks to Roman slaves!

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