Features
| UNISON'S NATIONAL INSPECTION DAY
The UNISON National Inspection Day take place on Wednesday 16 October. The purpose is to encourage safety reps to carry out their legal right to inspect workplaces for health, safety, and welfare problems. There will also be a new poster this year to bring the events to the attention of members and non members. Also available are UNISON's guides to workplace bullying, violence and stress, plus a leaflet for members and potential members on workplace stress. Branches could chose to focus on stress or one of the many causes of workplace stress such as bullying, violence, or other poor working conditions. However, if these are not a problem at your place of work or if there is a more pressing concern, your branch may chose to focus on these. If safety reps can be encouraged to carry out even just one extra inspection each year, then hopefully we can improve those figures which show that a workplace with trade union safety reps is twice as safe as one without.
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6.5 million working days are lost in Britain every year due to stress - an annual cost to the UK economy of £7 billion in sick pay and lost production. Kieran Wyatt sees how UNISON's National Inspection Day is helping in the fight against stress
All stressed out?
This week, countries within the European Union are participating in the European Week for Health and Safety, focusing on "psychosocial risks with special emphasis on stress".
Psychosocial risks include bullying, violence and stress.
After the success of last year's campaign, UNISON is once again promoting its National Inspection Day, taking place on Wednesday 16 October.
The purpose is to encourage safety reps to carry out their legal right to inspect workplaces for health, safety, and welfare problems.
Stress is one of the biggest health issues at work today. Over half a million people will have their physical or mental health damaged as a result of stress at work.
UNISON's revised booklet, 
Stress at Work a guide for safety representatives, aims to give stewards and health and safety representatives all the information they need to combat stress in the workplace.
It includes definitions of stress, the causes and costs of stress, the legal situation, case studies and the elements of a good stress policy.
The guide notes that, even today, there are employers that claim that stress is good for you.
This is nonsense.
Stress can have serious consequences upon your health. The Health and Safety Executive accepts there is no such thing as a pressure-free job and UNISON agrees.
Challenge and stimulation are necessary, but stress is not, and if a job is to be done well, stress should be avoided.
Employers often portray stress as an individual problem rather than one affecting the whole workplace and may claim that it is caused by problems outside of work.
But while much stress can be caused by factors such as relationships, health and noisy neighbours, work is still one of the main causes of stress.
UNISON's head of health and safety, Hugh Robertson, recommends workplace reps take a proactive role in combating stress using a special form enclosed with the booklet.
The form enables reps to gauge stress levels in the workplace. Once the extent of stress has been assessed then measures can be put in place to reduce and hopefully eliminate it.
The form asks workers to list the most stressful conditions they are experiencing, any symptoms of stress such as headaches, anxiety, high blood pressure - and what three changes would most help reduce their personal stress levels.
The statistics around stress can be quite shocking 6.5 million working days are lost in Britain every year at an annual cost to the UK economy of £7 billion in sick pay, lost production and NHS costs.
But Robertson is keen to point out that "stress is easily preventable, should not be treated differently from other risks and is unacceptable in the workplace."
UNISON welcomes comments on the booklet from branch safety officers and safety reps.
Contact the health and safety unit via email or 
visit their website
Contact the article's author Kieran Wyatt
| PUBLIC AT RISK?
The Centre for Corporate Accountability and UNISON have warned that workers and the public are being put at risk because the Health and Safety Executive has a serious shortage of resources. A joint report by the two bodies, timed to coincide with European Health and Safety Week, shows a serious decline in the number of workplace inspections - a 41% drop over the last five years. In addition the report reveals that last year 80% of "major" injuries to workers reported to the HSE, and 70% of "dangerous occurrences", were not even investigated. The HSE is the government body with primary responsibility for enforcing health and safety law across Britain. But the detailed audit into its work shows enforcement is both minimal and haphazard. Despite detailed policies, the levels of inspections, investigations and prosecutions are very low and vary enormously by region and by industrial sector. Hugh Robertson, UNISON's head of health and safety, said: "This report exposes the massive variations in the level of inspections, investigation and prosecution by both region and sector. It also reveals that, rather than increasing, the number of safety inspections has fallen considerably over the past five years. Reducing the number of inspections is not the way to help prevent death and injury at work. "The answer lies in more resources. We need the HSE to be pro-actively supporting employers, but we also need more inspections, more investigations, and more prosecutions of criminal employers." The report is based on a detailed analysis of five years of raw HSE data. David Bergman, director of the Centre for Corporate Accountability, said: "The failure to investigate such a large number of major injuries and dangerous occurrences - and to prosecute in such a small number of cases - has serious implications both for prevention in the future and also for ensuring proper accountability of those companies and individuals who have committed criminal offences." Read more about this in |
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