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Substitution
[ch 5: page 31]As part of the hierarchy of hazard controls (see Chapter 4), the TSSA transport union’s guidance, COVID-19 emergency: protecting yourself and your colleagues, explains that substitution in relation to COVID involves asking questions such as:
• can the task be redesigned to ensure, for example, a two-metre separation? and
• can the task be undertaken by having a larger separation than two metres?
Substitution can also involve using technologies to do things differently, such as facilitating working remotely through teleconferencing (see box).
Substitution at the BBC
An operations engineer at the BBC in Hull told Stage, Screen and Radio, the journal of the Bectu broadcasting and entertainment section of the Prospect specialists’ union, that the BBC had planned ahead of the first lockdown. Ordinarily the engineering team of four worked a four-day week, on some days all four of them depending on the working pattern. They arranged for one person to work in the building with the other three working from home, so if one became ill, the other three would not be affected.
Shooting interviews moved from face-to-face to virtual, with interviewees helped to set up their technology at home. Through the BBC national joint council, where the unions negotiate with the corporation, bi-weekly Zoom meetings updated union reps on the committee on health and safety and other issues.