Ongoing support for members: the first annual Safety Reps’ Conference

Next up was Steve White, a TUC tutor from the College of North East London, who gave a presentation on workplace inspections. He was also keen to stress that it is the employer’s responsibility to carry out workplace inspections, but that including the health and safety rep in these inspections is prudent to carrying out an effective inspection.

The next speaker was Shelly Asquith, health, safety and wellbeing policy lead at the TUC. She talked about the ongoing TUC campaigns in relation to workplace hazards. In recent months, there has been a lot of work to raise awareness of the fact asbestos is still present in many public buildings throughout the country. This is despite the fact all forms of asbestos fibres are hazardous, and can contribute towards serious respiratory conditions such as lung cancer and mesothelioma. If the asbestos remains intact there are no concerns; however, damage from factors such as weather conditions can release asbestos dust into the atmosphere, and exposure to these fibres is dangerous. Asbestos has been banned since 1999, but many asbestos-containing building materials still exist throughout the country and the number of asbestos-related health cases are on the rise. This epitomises the importance of the union’s campaign. Extreme working temperatures is another hot topic of campaigning by the TUC, with many public buildings too hot during the summer and too cold during the winter. Other subjects the TUC is focusing on this year include highlighting the large percentage of workers who don’t have easy access to a toilet during their shift, and the importance of carrying out stress assessments among workers. 

Kim Sunley also gave a presentation. She is the head of health, safety and wellbeing at the Royal College of Nursing, and a member of the NHS Staff Council’s Health, Safety and Wellbeing Group. This group works in partnership with NHS employers and trade unions to support compliance with health and safety legislation, as well as promoting the importance of a safer working environment for all NHS staff. Over the next three years, the group will be focusing on a number of health and safety issues, including building safety (asbestos), fatigue (impact on workers), work-related stress and artificial intelligence.

Janet Newsham, a co-ordinator at the Greater Manchester Hazards Centre, delivered a presentation highlighting the risks of lone working, with particular emphasis on the importance of the health and welfare of the individual who is lone working, as well as the environment they are working in. She was keen to highlight the fact many employees may request lone working because it suits them professionally and/or pragmatically; however, a health and welfare check on the employee should always take precedence over the employee’s individual choice. In this day and age, this is a very relevant subject because working from home is becoming more and more popular down to practical reasons such as childcare and travel expenses. When the Covid pandemic started and a vaccine had not been discovered, working from home was a no-brainer, as it mitigated the risk of people catching the illness. Now that vaccines are available and Covid under control, the situation has changed. Working from home is still popular, and the responsibilities of the employer and employee, under the Health and Safety Act, are the same, irrespective of whether the staff member is working on or off site. Risk assessments are essential before allowing an employee to work from home, especially if they will be lone working.

The last presentation of the day was from Quinn Roache, a TUC policy officer specialising in disability, LGBT+ and equality. He shared information acquired from the most recent survey of health and safety reps within the TUC movement. It was disturbing to note that the majority of health and safety reps across the TUC are white, male and over the age of 45. For the health and safety rep role to thrive and be perceived as credible, a good cross-section of personnel in these roles would help; however, for a combination of reasons, this is not yet happening. In particular, many ethnic minority staff are apprehensive about coming forward to be a health and safety rep for fear of not receiving adequate support. This presentation created some lively debate in the conference hall. Some of the white health and safety reps were keen to point out that it is not always the ethnic minorities who experience prejudice in the workplace, and that sometimes the white community can feel a sense of marginalisation.