Health & safety

This section of the website provides general guidance on health & safety rights and legislation.

The advice in these briefs provides some basic details on health & safety law. They do not attempt to describe every aspect, and should not be regarded as an authoritative statement of the law in any particular case.

TSSA members should, where necessary, seek advice from their staff reps, the TSSA Helpdesk or their Negotiations Officer.

TSSA Health & Safety Information

Accidents at work

Accidents at work: This brief provides members with a brief outline of the law on accidents and injuries at work.
Preventing Slips, Trips and Falls at Work: According to the HSE a third of all major injuries reported each year are caused as a result of a slip or trip, which represents the single most common cause of injuries at work.

Asbestos

Asbestos in the workplace - the new regulations: This factsheet has been prepared in conjunction with the TUC and tells you about the new requirements on duty holders to record the presence of asbestos in the workplace; the rights and role of a safety rep; and what you need to do to make sure your employer complies with the law.
Asbestos Register: Asbestos was widely used throughout industry and the railway industry was no exception. It is now beyond doubt that asbestos is, and will remain for some time, the biggest industrial killer ever as thousands die each year from mesothelioma and other asbestos related cancers.

Contractors

Using Contractors - new HSE guidance: The Health & Safety Executive have recently published a leaflet, "Use of Contractors - a joint responsibility" that addresses the selection and management of contractors.

Corporate Manslaughter

Corporate Manslaughter: For some years now the trade union movement has been campaigning for an improvement in the corporate killing law whose weakness allows managers with ultimate responsibility, at director level, to evade being held to account when, by their actions, workers or members of the public are killed.
Draft Corporate Manslaughter Bill: The Government published a draft Bill aimed at introducing a new offence of corporate manslaughter on 23 March 2005. They will be seeking comments on the draft by 12 June 2005.

Display Screen Equipment

Back pain: For many years now, back pain has been one of the most common reasons for sickness absence from employees in all parts of industry.
Repetitive Strain Injury: RSIs, also called work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs), describe a number of serious or potentially disabling physical conditions.
VDUs - The Display Screen Equipment (DSE) regulations: The DSE regulations are intended to prevent health problems occurring by promoting good ergonomic design of equipment, furniture, the working environment and job tasks.

Drugs & Alcohol

Alcohol problems in the workplace: Alcohol misuse is a major issue affecting employers and employees in the UK.

Fire safety

Fire Safety Checklist: In 1997 thirty employees died and two thousand six hundred were injured in the UK as a result of a fire in their place of work.

First Aid

First Aid in the Workplace: People at work can suffer injuries or fall ill. It is important that if they do, they receive immediate attention, and that an ambulance is called in serious cases.

H&S Inspections

Health & Safety Inspections: This brief provides an example of a Safety Rep’s "Local Health and Safety Inspection Procedure".
Safety Reps’ Legal Rights: A summary of the array of legal rights and powers available to H&S reps, and a reps’ checklist
Union Improvement Notices: The TUC have launched a major new initiative - union appointed safety reps will be able to serve a ’final warning’ on employers who endanger the health and safety of people at work, the TUC announced on 13 November 2001.

Health & Safety policy

28 April - International Workers’ Memorial Day: Worldwide millions die each year as a result of workplace hazards. Most don’t die of mystery ailments, or in tragic "accidents". They die because an employer decided their safety just wasn’t that important a priority. The global trade union movement wants employers to be accountable for workers’ health and safety.
Delivering health & safety in Great Britain - HSC Annual Report and HSE Accounts 2002/03: The Health & Safety Commission (HSC) Annual Report 2002/03 details the work of the HSC/Executive during 2002/03 and is based upon the plans contained in the HSC’s Business Plan which, in turn, is based on the Strategic Plan 2001-2004.
Government response to Select Committee’s recommendations: In responding to the Select Committee’s recommendations in October 2004, the government has claimed that the present funding levels are sufficient, provoking comparisons by Paul Noon, General Secretary of the HSE inspectors’ union, Prospect, of delusion on a scale comparable with the emperor’s new clothes.
HSE Strategy for workplace health and safety: The Health and Safety Commission published their new long-term blueprint for Britain’s workplaces in February 2004.
Hundreds of whistle blowers sacked: Hundreds of workers are being sacked every year for refusing to work in unsafe offices and factories because the law that is meant to protect them is failing to stop their negligent bosses from showing them the door, according to a joint TUC/Hazards investigation published recently.
Strategy for workplace health and safety in Great Britain to 2010 and beyond: The Health and Safety Commission (HSC) has published a Strategy for Workplace Health and Safety in Great Britain to 2010 and Beyond.
The "Unions Work" report: The Scottish TUC have published a report "Unions Work" that demonstrates that after pay and conditions, concerns about the working environment are the most frequently given reason for joining a union.
The work of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive: At the end of July 2004 the Work and Pensions Select Committee of the House of Commons published the report of their investigation into the work of the Health and Safety Commission and Executive.

Health & Safety Reps

Have your say on the future of facilities for reps!: Earlier this year, the DTI announced plans to review the facilities and facility time available for workplace reps. The TSSA welcomes this review as the first step in securing a better deal for union reps across the UK.
Safety Reps’ Legal Rights: A summary of the array of legal rights and powers available to H&S reps, and a reps’ checklist
The Union Effect: The TUC’s recent report "The Union Effect" shows that union safety reps are the best defence against work-related accidents and ill-health.

Manual handling

Back pain: For many years now, back pain has been one of the most common reasons for sickness absence from employees in all parts of industry.
Manual handling operations regulations 1992 (as amended) - guidance on regulations: The third edition of this HSE legal series publication provides detailed guidance on manual handling and aims to help employers, managers, safety representatives and employees across all industries reduce the risk of injury from manual handling.
Office Health & Safety: An introduction to the potential hazards in the office and how to mitigate them.

Noise

’Stop That Noise’: European Week for Safety and Health At Work: A Europe-wide campaign has been launched to tackle one of Europe’s most persistent workplace health problems - noise at work.

Office Safety

Office Health & Safety: An introduction to the potential hazards in the office and how to mitigate them.
Overcrowding: Under Regulation 10 of the Workplace Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations, every workroom must have sufficient floor area, height, and unoccupied space to ensure health, safety and welfare.
Photocopiers and printers in the office: This bulletin examines in more detail an ever present feature of all offices, photocopiers and laser printers, and also provides a revised ’office hazards checklist’ that TSSA safety reps’ may find useful when conducting office based inspections.
Sick building syndrome: Sick Building Syndrome (SBS) is a generic term "used to describe a range of common symptoms which for no obvious reason are associated with particular buildings".
Statistics of workplace fatalities and injuries - office-based industries: The HSC has published this report, which describes the statistical trends relating to injuries in the office-based industry for the period 1996/97 to 2001/02.

Repetitive Strain Injury

Repetitive Strain Injury: RSIs, also called work related upper limb disorders (WRULDs), describe a number of serious or potentially disabling physical conditions.

Risk Assessment

Investing in Health & Safety: As trade union activists, reps are already convinced of the moral and principled case for high standards of health and safety in the work place. Even in this day and age, some employers are not so enlightened. This Bulletin brings together information to help reps put the business case for improving health and safety when dealing with these employers.
Measures: 1) Corporate Health & Safety Indicators (CHaSPI)
Risk Assessment: A risk assessment is not a dauntingly complicated scientific exercise. It is a simple procedure all employers are obliged to undertake to ensure a safer workplace environment for you, the employee.
Risk Assessment - the five steps: The HSE have recently reissued their guidance on risk assessment, and this brief is based upon the HSE publication "Five steps to risk assessment".
Risk Assessment Requirements: This bulletin is based upon the HSE publication, "A guide to Risk Assessment Requirements." Though the HSE guide is intended for employers and self-employed people, it provides valuable information for reps’ who wish to know how the risk assessment provisions in different regulations are linked together and what they add up to.

Road Safety

Managing occupational road risk: The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA) has published a guide, designed to help organisations adopt a systematic management approach to reducing the risks that their workers face and create for others while they are at work on the road.

Smoking

Designated ’no smoking’ areas provide partial or no protection from environmental tobacco smoke: A research paper, recently published in the British Medical Journal - Tobacco Control, discusses an Australian study that sought to establish the effectiveness of designated ’no smoking’ areas in the hospitality industry as a means of protection against environmental tobacco smoke (ETS), and whether particular design features help to achieve this goal.
Office Health & Safety: An introduction to the potential hazards in the office and how to mitigate them.

Stress

Draft code of practice on violence and stress at work in services: a threat to productivity and decent work: The International Labour Office (ILO) has published this draft code of practice (the code). It aims to provide general guidance in addressing the problem of workplace stress and violence in services sectors.
Employees’ stress and employers’ liability: The Court of Appeal has provided an excellent summary of the situations in which an employer can be held liable for employees’ work-related stress.
Stress - statistical information: This brief provides reps with some statistical information on the nature of workplace stress.
Stress at Work: The causes and symptoms of stress, and how to combat the common factors
Stress survey 2004: analysis of results: The stress survey was conducted to mark the Railway Workers’ International Action Day - Safety First which took place on Wednesday 31st March 2004.
Stress Update: In this brief we look at two new HSE publications and a recent legal ruling concerning an employers’ duty of care not to expose an employee to stress likely to cause him psychiatric injury or illness.
Stress: recent research: A recent study found that stress is the principal cause of long-term sickness absence in non-manual workers, and has reached ’alarming levels’ in the public sector.

Temperature

Office Health & Safety: An introduction to the potential hazards in the office and how to mitigate them.

Union Improvement Notices

Union Improvement Notices: The TUC have launched a major new initiative - union appointed safety reps will be able to serve a ’final warning’ on employers who endanger the health and safety of people at work, the TUC announced on 13 November 2001.

Violence at work

Draft code of practice on violence and stress at work in services: a threat to productivity and decent work: The International Labour Office (ILO) has published this draft code of practice (the code). It aims to provide general guidance in addressing the problem of workplace stress and violence in services sectors.
Violence in the workplace: A four-stage process for managing workplace violence
Violence in the workplace: Advice on the legal issues and employers’ duty of care

Working alone

Working alone safely: This brief outlines the HSE’s guidance, and draws on other health and safety advice in relation to working alone.

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