Health and safety at work is a right and not a privilege

Nick Ireland, Usdaw Regional Secretary, calls for the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) to be properly funded.

International Workers Memorial Day, April 28th

On April 28th this, and every year, trade unions across the world remember those workers who have been killed, disabled, injured or made unwell by their work on International worker’s memorial day (IWMD).

“As we remember those who have lost their lives at work every April , its time for the Health & safety Executive (HSE) to be properly funded to enable them to work effectively with trade union health and safety Reps and employer’s “

Health and Safety at work is a right and not a privilege. Keeping our members safe is one of the keys aims of Usdaw. This involves ensuring safe working practices and environments, safety training, ensuring the supply of personal protective equipment, and advising members and reps on all their aspects of safety at work .

Organising for a safe and healthy workplaces

Usdaw Health and Safety reps continue to organise workplaces to ensure they are safe for everyone and we continue to make the case for strong laws, strong enforcement and strong unions to help our reps;

• Organise: Usdaw workplace reps have the tools, support and training they need to help keep members healthy and safe
• Inspect: Usdaw reps can use their legal functions to inspect
• Protect: Usdaw uses our collective bargaining strength to make sure workplace health and safety policies are functioning properly and our campaigns like ‘freedom from fear’ and a ‘New deal for workers’ are used to give all workers a voice and secure new legal rights.

A safe work place covers a huge range of issues and the role of the Rep is to work with and also challenge employers to ensure they are operating within the framework of health and safety legislation , this of course ensures a safer work place is also a fairer work place.

Health and safety at work covers diverse issues such as, lone working and the risk of sexual harassment , pregnancy risk assessments , safe journeys to and from work , protection from abuse and harassment for home delivery drivers and all public facing staff and workplace temperatures ( hot or cold), these are just a few examples that can impact on our members every day .

Social partnership, fair work, and proper funding of regulatory bodies

Usdaw has thousands of health and safety reps across Wales who are instrumental in maintaining a safe workplace and who work with management to prevent accidents. Through the social partnership, it is planned that a Workplace Rights and Responsibilities Forum is being established. It will give all unions and the Wales TUC, employers and the HSE and Local authority officers a platform to share information and practices, with the joint aim of improving safety and standards in workplaces

Funding the regulatory bodies properly is a huge part of this picture , continual funding cuts from Westminster have weakened the effectiveness of the HSE , and Usdaw and Wales TUC are calling for a reversal of these cuts , we also want to see more HSE and Local authority inspectors to enforce health and safety law, and for those inspectors to work in social partnership with union safety reps when they do workplace inspections .

“Working as social partners unions, employers and regulatory bodies can only make workplaces safer and fairer for everyone.”