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30 year on - TUC launches safety rep charter
23 October 2008
To mark the 30th anniversary of the implementation of the Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations, the TUC has launched a new charter to enhance the role of the health and safety rep.
The TUC Charter explains why health and safety reps have played a major part in the improvement of health and safety in this country since the late 1970s. It also outlines some of the barriers that get in the way of health and safety reps playing as active a role as they should in some workplaces.
The charter concludes with a list of demands:
- All employers should be asked how they consult with their workforce
- A campaign to show employers the value of consultation and remind them of their legal obligations
- More support for safety representatives from the HSE
- A recognition that the union model is the most effective one in protecting the health and safety of workers
- Free access to all ACoPs and guidance for safety representatives
- Increased training for both HSE and local authority inspectors on the role and function of safety representatives.
- Greater enforcement of the consultation regulations
- Sanctions available against employers who deny safety representatives paid release for training
- Penalties against employers who victimise a safety representative
- A new legal duty on employers to respond to issues raised by safety representatives
- A duty on enforcing authorities to react to a complaint from a safety representative that their employer has not responded adequately
- A specific requirement on employers to consult safety representatives on risk assessments and controls arising out of them
- An extension of Regulation 8 to cover other industries with large numbers of short-term, temporary “self-employed”or freelance workers
- An extension of the ability of safety representatives to act outside their immediate workplace or employer in certain circumstances
- The right for safety representatives to stop unsafe and dangerous work taking place
- A legal requirement on all employers with more than 20 employees to have safety representatives and all employers with more than 50 employees to have a safety committee.
- Continuation of the Workplace Advisors scheme in construction
- A national worker advisor scheme for SMEs using union appointed and supported safety representatives
A copy has been sent to the health and safety Minister. The Charter will feature in the centre page spread of the next edition of Hazards, the health and safety reps magazine.
Copies of the Charter are available from the Health and Safety Section at Central Office - email healthandsafety@usdaw.org.uk or phone 0161 249 2441 - or can be downloaded by clicking below.
Download File:
TUC Health and Safety Rep Charter [ doc ]
Contact Details
Health and Safety section
Ph: 0161 249 2441
Fax: 0161 249 2475
Email: healthandsafety@usdaw.org.uk
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