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TUC National Inspection Day 24 October
22 October 2007
The TUC has designated the Wednesday of European Health and Safety Week as "National Inspection Day". They want trade union safety reps to get out into their workplaces on 24 October to carry out workplace inspections.
This year the theme for European Health and Safety Week is musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs). MSDs like back pain and RSI are a significant risk for many Usdaw members, so the theme offers a good topic for Usdaw safety reps to inspect on. When doing an inspection make sure that you talk to the workers (both members and non-members) to find out what their concerns are.
Following last year's commitment to work with union health and safety reps, the HSE has added new resources for union reps to its web pages for European Health and Safety Week. The resources for health and safety reps on the HSE web pages include
- Checklist on upper limb disorders for workplace assessments of repetitive handling tasks.
- VDU workstation checklist
- Manual handling checklist
- Manual handling assessment charts
- Body mapping tool.
They can be downloaded at http://www.hse.gov.uk/campaigns/euroweek/safetyrepresources.htm.
The HSE also provides inspection report forms at http://www.hse.gov.uk/workers/safetyreps/index.htm so you can give managers a written report of the result of the inspection.
Tesco reps should already be in the middle of a campaign on manual handling promoted by the company. A key part of the campaign is the use of inspection checklists to identify possible manual handling risks.
Wherever you work, if you area an Usdaw safety rep, please get out and inspect on National Inspection Day.
Contact Details
Health and Safety section
Ph: 0161 249 2441
Fax: 0161 249 2475
Email: healthandsafety@usdaw.org.uk
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