What the Trade Unions have to say about Health & Safety

Anyone who has a direct involvement with health and safety in their workplace will come into contact with trade unions, whether it is through attendance at Safety Committee meetings, involvement with Union Safety Representatives or possibly as a result of accident investigations etc. Whilst all Safety Representatives are entitled to receive relevant health and safety training (Safety Representatives & Safety Committees Regulations 1977), additional information is also available to them, normally directly from their particular trade union.

In the current era most trade unions have developed a website to provide information to their members on a variety of health and safety topics and these sites can also be useful to the safety practitioner.

What follows is a list of some of the most common trade unions and their website addresses, with notes telling you what to expect to find on each particular site.

AEEU – this is now Amicus which represents manufacturing, technical and skilled persons. The website address is: www.amicustheunion.org/ This site contains a key word search engine and if you enter “Health & Safety” it will open up a page allowing you to access at least 30 displayable items with a general safety theme.

CWU – this is the Communication Workers Union site. The website address is: www.cwu.org/ Here health and safety information can be obtained by looking at “CWU Services” on the opening page and you will find that Health and Safety is one of the items on the drop down list. Clicking on this will take you to the health and safety home page that has a list of 21 subject headings all of which can be opened to give further information on the chosen subject.

GMB – this is the General, Municipal and Boilermakers site. The main website address is: http://www.gmb.org.uk/homepage.asp?NodeID=89643This opens the Home Page and the site has a search engine. By typing in “Health & Safety” you will open up a page with general health and safety information.

NUT – this is the site for the National Union of Teachers and the website address is:www.teachers.org.uk/index.php There is a list of subjects on the opening page and health and safety is listed amongst these. Clicking on this subject brings up the health and safety home page that has four sections devoted to health and safety topics, mainly relevant to the school environment.

TGWU – this the Transport and General Workers Union and the website address is:http://www.tgwu.org.uk/homepage.asp?NodeID=88397This site has a search engine and if you key in “Health & Safety” it will bring up an opening page that contains news items of relevance as well as giving the reader the opportunity to see “H&S Update” the union health and safety publication.

UNISON – this is the union for public sector workers and the website address is:www.unison.org.uk/safety/index.asp This should take you directly to the health and safety opening page that gives access to H&S Information sheets and guides, Branch H&S Bulletins etc. You can also gain access to Safety Representative guides and information on current news items.

USDAW – This is the union for shop, distributive and allied workers and the website is: www.usdaw.org.uk/ The opening page has a keyword search facility and entering “Health and Safety” will open up a results page listing a number of document headings (258 at the time I accessed it). It is worth noting that not all of these deal directly with workplace safety.

And finally, the TUC – The Trades Union Congress, the federation which represents over 70 trade unions and who’s website is: http://www.tuc.org.uk/ On the opening page is a search engine with a drop down menu. Health & Safety is one of the items in the menu and clicking on it will bring up the health and safety home page. This gives a scroll down feature giving access to the latest issues of “Risks” the TUC health and safety publication and shows the publication content, latest news items and a list of associated health and safety website links. Also on the opening page is displayed a list of subject headings which can prove to be useful.

So there you have it, if you want to find out where your local Safety Representative or Branch Secretary, Shop Steward etc gets all of his/her safety information from take a look at the relevant website. There are, as I have mentioned, many more sites. If I have not included your trade union here use one of the search engines such as “Google” or “Ask Jeeves“ etc and just key in the union name and go from there. Good surfing!

Frank Cooper MIOSH RSP