Campaigns
TUC is one of the UK’s most high profile campaigning organisations – and health and safety is one of its top campaigning priorities. Trade union campaigns aim to raise awareness of issues in the workplace and put pressure on decision makers to address these concerns.
Typical campaigns focus on individual safety issues, defending existing rights and calling for new rights, or national and international days of action.
There are many different forms of trade union campaigning, for example:
· Hazards. Examples would include: Campaigns for legal asbestos controls and for justice for asbestos victims; a successful campaign for an Approved Code of Practice (ACoP) on asthma and an awareness raising campaign on the causes and prevention of occupational asthma; awareness raising and hazards spotting tools for workplace Repetitive Strain Injuries (RSI); campaigns on workplace stress emphasising the organisational causes that can be remedied by good union safety interventions; and gender perspectives on health and safety, making sure women’s health and hazards are taken into full account in the workplace and in official health and safety policy and practice.
· Rights. Some TUC campaigns set out to defend health and safety rights and others to extend them. For example the TUC/Hazards loo breaks campaign called for a right for workers not only to have access to a toilet at work but also to have the opportunity to use it. TUC introduced Union Inspection Notices (UINs) as part of its ongoing campaign for greater safety reps’ rights – including Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs), roving safety reps and greater rights to consultation and participation.
· Events and Days of action. The largest single union day of action is International Workers’ Memorial Day, where trade unions worldwide commemorate those killed, injured or made ill by their work and campaign for the right to a safe and healthy working environment. The day is marked annually on 28 April. Other noteworthy events are the annual European week for health and safety at work and the TUC Work Your Proper Hours Day.
Links
TUC Workers’ Memorial Day web pages
TUC Work Your Proper Hours Day
TUC Risks – latest news and campaign updates
TUC New Unionism safety reps rights
Hazards union campaigns web page
TUC/Hazards toilet breaks campaign
TUC European week for health and safety at work web page
European Agency European week for health and safety at work
HSE European week for health and safety at work web page
UNISON Organising
for health and safety pack
The most recent documents available on this subject are:
HSE move will ‘haemorrhage key expertise'
Plans to relocate the Health and Safety Executive's (HSE) policy division will damage its ability to advise Whitehall, fail to produce promised savings and risks haemorrhaging key expertise within the safety organisation, HSE unions have warned.
PDF version available for download
20 July 2007
Vote now for serious safety sanctions!
The TUC wants you to back a proposal for more serious safety penalties on dangerous employers.
PDF version available for download
9 March 2007
Work health watchdog 'too under-resourced' to work
The body charged with protecting the occupational health of 29 million British workers is too under-resourced to operate effectively, the union representing official health and safety specialists has warned.
PDF version available for download
19 January 2007
HSE Resources - a TUC briefing
The HSE faces a further round of cuts. It is already under-resourced, and the TUC is campaigning for an increase in funding from the Government. The TUC believes that a fully resouced HSE is essential if the Government is to meet its targets for reducing injury and ill-health in the workplace.
16 October 2006
Union backs safety campaign on foreign lorries
Lorry drivers' unions have joined with vehicle operators to call for more stringent checks on foreign lorries working in the UK, after government inspectors found they were three times as likely to be breaking safety rules.
PDF version available for download
14 July 2006
24 hour opening means workers at greater risk of hearing loss warns TUC and RNID
RNID and the TUC are today (Monday) warning that changes in the Licensing Act, allowing 24 hour opening, will lead to an increased likelihood of workers in bars, clubs and pubs being exposed to dangerously loud noise for longer. They fear extended opening hours will mean the 568,000 people already working in this growing industry will be subjected to music so loud they could lose or permanently damage their hearing.
24 October 2005
| Older documents - 4 |  |
Back to Health and Safety.