BECTU's submission on employee consultation and involvement in health & safety to the UK Health and Safety Commission
16 March 2000
BECTU is the Broadcasting Entertainment Cinematograph and Theatres Union. We are the trade union for technical, production and creative workers in film, television, radio, theatres and the entertainment industry.
Our health and safety coverage includes well organised workplaces with functioning trade union Safety Representatives and Safety Committees; permanent workplaces with no union recognition and thus no system of union Safety Representatives or Safety Committees; and mobile/freelance work situations with workers on short-term contracts where such arrangements are often impractical even if the will exists to implement them.
This submission is based upon this wide range of practical experience. It has also emerged from a widespread consultation among Safety Representatives and other members across all our industrial Divisions, covering the BBC; commercial broadcasting; independent TV, radio, feature film, commercials and non-broadcast production and post-production; film laboratories, theatres; cinemas, and leisure and entertainment.
The structure of the submission broadly follows the structure of Appendix 3 in the HSC Discussion Document.
1. The need to improve worker involvement and consultation in health and safety
We believe measures are urgently required to promote more effective involvement and consultation of workers in health and safety.
All our experience demonstrates that good health and safety management is directly related to the presence of union Safety Representatives and Safety Committees. For instance, in TV production, health and safety systems and standards are higher in those parts of the industry where there are union Safety Representatives and functioning Safety Committees, than in those parts where no such arrangements exist.
In fact in some parts of our industries, characterised by small businesses and short-term/casual employment, the level of employer compliance with their fundamental health and safety obligations is abysmal. Taking a generous view, it may be argued that the Health and Safety (Consultation with Employees) Regulations 1996 were introduced precisely to plug this gap. If so, then it has not worked. Overwhelmingly, employers who fail to recognise trade unions and therefore deny a role to union Safety Representatives, also fail to meet their obligations under the 1996 Regulations. Many are unaware that the Regulations exist. Others have found that they can ignore them with impunity.
From this we draw the conclusion that new legal obligations are required to improve the involvement and consultation of workers; and that these should build on the established track record of union Safety Representatives. Our views here, which are based on a new right for trade union members to have access to a union Safety Representative, are set out below.
We recognise that there will still be workplaces where workers will not be able to exercise this right. Here, the 1996 Regulations need to be amended and strengthened so that the system for worker involvement and consultation is seen to be supported and endorsed by the workforce, and not imposed by the employer. The obvious mechanism for agreeing an appropriate system is by workforce ballot.
2. Effective measures
The measures we would wish to emphasise to improve the involvement and consultation of workers are better training and support for union Safety Representatives; greater enforcement of current law; and extension of the powers of union Safety Representatives, requiring a revision of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committee Regulations.
3 and 4. Involvement and consultation in small firms and mobile/freelance work situations
We are very familiar with the problems posed by small firms, and by mobile/freelance work situations with workers on short-term contracts. As stressed above, the 1996 Regulations do not in practice provide "safety net" procedures for worker involvement and participation in health and safety. On the other hand, where effective systems exist for involving and consulting workers, they are invariably associated with the presence of union Safety Representatives.
The added value provided by union Safety Representatives is that they have access to an independent source of training, information, advice and back-up through their unions. They thus bring an extra element of expertise into the workplace, additional to any expertise mobilised by the employer. This independence is a source of reassurance for individual union members, and it ought to be a source of reassurance for employers too.
The association between access to a union Safety Representative, and effective protection against hazards at work, is a matter of record. It is borne out by independent research, including HSE research, which has found accident rates lower in workplaces with union Safety Representatives and Safety Committees than in other comparable workplaces without them.
Given this proven track record of union Safety Representatives, and given the right of workers to belong to a trade union, we believe it follows that all trade union members should have a new right of access to a union Safety Representative. This right should not be dependent upon their employer recognising the union for collective bargaining. It should instead be an individual right, equivalent to the right conferred by the Employment Rights Act for union members to be accompanied by a union representative in Grievance or Disciplinary hearings.
5. Gender, ethnicity and language
There are undoubtedly issues relating to gender, ethnicity and language in the field of workplace health and safety.
Gender is the most immediately significant area for our own members, given the continuing gender-specific character of many specialisms and skills, each of which has its own characteristic hazards and risks: most Hair and Make-Up Artists are women, who face regular risks of dermatitis from working with hair and cosmetic products; while most Riggers are men, who face regular risks of falls from height.
In addition Safety Representatives in certain sectors, such as theatres, report that casual workers are sometimes recruited whose command of English is not good.
Means of addressing these issues could include:-
- Constant emphasis by employers, unions and enforcement authorities on occupational health and hygiene (which often disproportionately affect women) as well as accidents at work (which often disproportionately affect men);
- Ongoing monitoring of ethnic and language diversity in different industrial sectors;
- Positive commitment by employers, unions and enforcement authorities to publish health and safety information and guidance in appropriate formats and languages, arising from this monitoring.
6. Safety Representatives' powers
If it is accepted that union Safety Representatives add value to workplace health and safety, it follows that their powers should be such as to maximise this benefit. We therefore believe that suitably trained and competent union Safety Representatives should have the right to issue Provisional Improvement Notices (PINs) as discussed in the HSC consultation document, on the basis that these would complement and not replace Notices served by HSE, Local Authority and Fire Inspectors.
The competence of individual Safety Representatives to issue PINs should be a matter for judgement by their accrediting unions, in the same way as the competence of a "Competent Person" is a matter for judgement by the employer under the Management Regulations. In our view there would be no incentive for unions to accredit inadequately trained and experienced Safety Representatives, as abuse of the power to issue PINs would seriously undermine unions' wider credibility in the field of health and safety.
Thought also needs to be given to the increasing trend to multi-employer workplaces, and to the need for appropriate systems of worker involvement and consultation. This is a recurring issue in our industries, where workplaces such as film studios or theatres are in the business of "hosting" production companies - often several at a time - who may work on their premises for periods of time ranging from one or two days to several months, with workforces ranging from a handful to many hundreds.
General duties already exist for employers on the same premises to communicate and co-operate with one another, and with the owners of the premises, on health and safety. Equivalent duties are required to enable Safety Representatives similarly to communicate and co-operate. One possibility is that existing Safety Representatives at a workplace should have the right to represent workers employed by other employers who are working temporarily at that workplace. Another possible model might be a new duty on employers sharing work premises to exchange information on their arrangements for worker involvement and consultation, including names of Safety Representatives, and to copy such information to Safety Representatives representing their own workers.
In addition Safety Representatives should have the right to contact and liaise with Fire Authority Inspectors in the same way as with HSE Inspectors and Local Authority Inspectors.
7. Victimisation and detriment of Safety Representatives
Safety Representatives require further protection against victimisation and detriment. Where a Safety Representative is sacked for carrying out his/her duties, an injustice is done not only to that individual, but also to the wider constituency which he/she represents. It is therefore inadequate to treat the matter simply as an individual case of unfair dismissal. We support the argument that the unfair dismissal of a Safety Representative due to health and safety matters should be a criminal offence.
8. Safety Representatives' training and competence
We support the principle of common, recognised standards of training and competence for union Safety Representatives, and firmly believe these should continue to be developed by the trade union movement, building on existing TUC Stage1/Stage 2 courses, plus the new Safety Certificate accredited by IOSH, plus complementary training by individual unions that meets agreed standards.
The whole community will benefit from the improved workplace safety performance which will follow from this training provision. It will take pressure off the health service, and help promote good practice in business. It is therefore right and proper that it should be fully publicly funded, through the Further Education Funding Council or some other appropriate body.
9. Roving Safety Representatives
We support the proposal for "Roving Safety Representatives". The essential issue here is the principle set out above: that all trade union members should have a right of access to a union Safety Representative, which should not be restricted to workplaces where the employer recognises the union. It should instead be an individual right, equivalent to the right conferred by the Employment Rights Act for union members to be accompanied by a union representative in Grievance or Disciplinary hearings.
Regulation 8 of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations already allows for situations where Safety Representatives need not be employees, with particular reference to Equity and the Musicians Union. This was put in place in the 1970s in recognition of the mobile, short-term nature of much actors' and musicians' employment. Similar patterns of employment now exist across many sectors. An extension of this principle to all independent unions is therefore appropriate.
The Freelance Production Agreement which BECTU has reached with PACT (the Producers Alliance for Cinema and Television, the trade association for independent film and TV production companies) states that each production unit should elect a Safety Representative but that "(in) the absence of a Safety Representative being elected, then a full time official of BECTU can act as the Safety Representative." In other words this body of employers has already accepted the principle of "Roving Safety Representatives" in the film/TV industry.
For this reason, we strongly oppose the suggestion that "Roving Safety Representatives" should be limited to certain industrial sectors, such as agriculture or construction. This wrongly poses the problem in terms of addressing the needs of particular industries. But the essential issue here is much wider, and concerns the rights of individual workers to have access to union Safety Representatives because this is a tried and tested means of effective involvement and consultation on health and safety at work.