- Conference
- 2024 National Delegate Conference
- Date
- 22 February 2024
- 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 and long Covid.
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 of services and work related stress when linked to other mental health issues such as anxiety and depression could be classed as a disability and offer protection under the Equality Act. Lack of proper sick pay and reasonable adjustments in many workplaces reveal wider systemic failures in protecting our members rights at work. Staff dealing directly with the public and clients have seen stress rise due to service cuts, delays, waiting lists, verbal and physical abuse and all outside their direct control. 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 this year.
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 Safety 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 checklist for branches to hold employers accountable in carrying out robust risk assessments, and making a commitment to uphold health and safety standards, with input from the National Disabled Members Committee;
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 campaigning, organising and recruitment approaches;
3)Work with regions to develop the regional lay health and safety forums, supporting branches to build strong collective bargaining arrangements and support the continued training and development of health and safety representatives and officers;
4)Work with self-organised groups and young members to promote the health and safety rep role;
5)Campaign for proper sick pay from day one of an absence;
6)Work with our political funds to influence all political parties to lobby for more support and protection for workers in relation to stress and all other workplace hazards such as, Covid 19 and the ever-increasing effects of long Covid on workers;
7)Continue to highlight poor pay, terms and conditions as having a material effect on the ability of services to recruit and retain staff and consequently encourage all campaigning, including industrial action to secure better pay, terms and conditions;
8)Report on the sheer waste of resources when it comes to training and hiring new staff for them only to leave due to unacceptable levels of stress;
9)Recognise that unmanageable caseloads and unsafe staffing are a major factor in anxiety and stress, leading to more serious poor mental health issues. Work with service groups in developing recognised and agreed caseloads which can be used by national bodies and in local negotiations as best practice and supporting recruitment and retention;
10)Work with Hazards and Stress Network to raise awareness of these issues across a broader network of organisations and civil society.