Safety first

Millions of workers are well aware of the potentially devastating impact of the government’s ideologically-driven trade union Bill which is currently going through Parliament.

Their concerns rightly focus around the clauses designed to make it harder to take strike action, which impose severe restrictions on pickets and allow agency workers to break strikes.

Little wonder Unite and other unions see the bill as a real threat to basic rights and an anti-democratic attempt to silence members.

However, other aspects of the proposed legislation are also causing serious concern, especially around health and safety.

Trade unions have always played a vital role in ensuring that people go home safely after a day’s work.

It’s long been proven that the safest and healthiest workplaces by far are those with trade union safety reps.

That’s the direct result of the Health and Safety at Work Act, which since 1974 has obliged bosses to ‘ensure the health and safety at work of the employees’.

Should the Tories get their way, however, that will all change.

This matters greatly, not only on an individual level, but because more than 28m working days are lost every year through injuries caused at work.

These are all preventable, but only with trade union health and safety reps operating freely in workplaces.

As Susan Murray, Unite’s national health and safety advisor, points out, the bill seeks to restrict reps.

“They have an entitlement under the existing legislation to have time to carry out their functions. That’s ‘time on’ as we would call it, at work, during working hours. And there’s no limit, it’s however long they need to take.

“Really, trained safety representatives are crucial because they have the confidence to raise issues with employers and work with them to try to resolve them,” she says.

Real problem 

“The bill overlooks the real problem,” Murray explains, “which is not the amount of days lost to strike action but the cost every year of injuries and ill health caused by work.”

She dismisses the suggestion that the government have simply failed to understand the consequences of what they are proposing.

“No I’m sure they have thought about it, and I don’t think this is inadvertent; health and safety is one of the main reasons people join trade unions, so this is also an organising issue. It’s all part of their attack on trade unions,” she says.

That point is difficult to dispute given that as long ago as January 2012 David Cameron said that his new year’s resolution was to “kill off the health and safety culture for good.”

Safety targeted

Murray says, “health and safety has been targeted by the government right from the start. The message has gone out, that it doesn’t matter anymore, and a result, accidents and ill health are rising.”

There’s another point here too however, that under Tory plans, agency workers could be brought into workplaces during a dispute.

For Murray this raises serious concerns. “We certainly can’t assume that people brought in at short notice will have training, they may not know the workplace or have the right skills.

“I would have thought employers would be concerned about this – many of them want good safety. We are there to try to help them.”

Lobby November 2

The TUC is now calling for a mass face-to-face lobbying of MPs next month over the Trade Union Bill.

Shortly before the vote, on the afternoon of Monday November 2, hundreds of people from all over the country are expected to be in Westminster with the aim of making sure MPs hear directly from those most worried by the government’s plans to undermine the right to strike, and severely restrict picketing and protesting.

This is an opportunity for those voting on the Bill to get the message the public have serious concerns over this appalling legislation and are watching the vote closely.

There will be a rally nearby at Central Hall in Parliament Square, from where members of the public will be able to meet their local MP to flag up concerns.

Unite members are urged to get involved and to contact nowusu@tuc.org.uk for more details.

More details about the effect unions have in reducing serious injuries in the workplace can be found in the TUC report “The union effect”.