- Conference
- 2023 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 14 February 2023
- Decision
- Carried
Conference affirms that employers have a legal duty to protect both the health, and the safety of their employees in relation to the activities of the employer.
Conference notes that work related stress is defined as ‘the adverse reaction people have to excessive pressures or other types of demand placed on them’. Stress is a hazard in the same category as electrical safety, fire safety, manual handling, hazardous substances, violence, infectious diseases such as Covid-19.
Conference further notes that robust risk assessments are crucial in identifying and tackling the root causes of stress at work.
Stress levels faced by those providing public services have been exacerbated by the legacy of Covid-19, growing workplace uncertainty and long-term chronic underfunding.
This is contributing to a national crisis of stress at work and its effects. It is also deeply concerning that the Conservative government’s haphazard approach to the retained EU Law Bill, has put Health and Safety legislation and protections under direct threat.
Conference also notes that an absence of strong collective bargaining arrangements can lead to unsafe working environments where ‘control’ rather than ‘empowerment’ is the common default policy in many workplaces.
Public service workers, including those working for private and not-for-profit employers, are all too often put in a position that compromises their health through being overworked, working ill and working too many hours. These and many other factors have contributed to an alarming number of workers being signed of sick with stress. The evidence of this can be seen in the Health and Saftety Executive’s own annual statistics on accidents and ill health, which have shown that Work-related stress depression and anxiety has become the highest cause of work-related ill health absence now accounting for 51 percent of all new and long-term cases.
The vital work of our health and safety representatives were put firmly under the spotlight as the pandemic progressed. It is important that this work continues. We must act now to support UNISON members facing these challenges. Conference calls on the National Executive Council to:
1)Develop a Stress charter for members to hold employers accountable in carrying out robust risk assessments, and making a commitment to uphold Health and Safety standards;
2)Support a national campaign utilising the existing ‘Be On The Safe Side’ campaign tools, including the development of new tools and resources to support branches and regions in organising and recruitment practices;
3)Work with regions to develop the regional lay health and safety forums and support branches in the recruitment, training and continued development of health and safety representatives and branch officers.
