Union impact on health and safety



The TUC trains around 10,000 safety reps every year, with many more trained through their unions. There are around 100,000 reps in UK workplaces today.



The TUC publication, The union effect – how unions make a difference on health and safety, shows how unions make workplaces safer and the benefits for individual workers, employers and wider society. Studies have shown that:


• employers with trade union health and safety committees have half the injury rate of those employers who manage safety without unions or joint arrangements;



• where there is a union presence, the workplace injury rate is 24% lower than where there is no union presence;



• workers in unionised workplaces are less likely to have a fatal injury; and



• the arrangements associated with trade unions lower the odds of injury and illness when compared with arrangements that merely inform employees of occupational health and safety (OHS) issues.



The report also explains how trade union involvement saves the economy millions of pounds by helping to reduce workplace injuries and levels of occupational ill-health, developing a more positive safety culture at work. A 2016 analysis of figures from the Workplace Employment Relations Survey calculated that savings delivered by unions across the economy ranged between £476 million and £1,250 million (at 2014 prices). Prevention of workplace injuries and work-related ill-health contributed over half of the overall union-related savings (£130m-£360m a year).



The union effect recommends a number of simple changes to the SRSCR to make them more effective and to help reduce injuries and illnesses caused by work. These include:


• roving safety representatives who can cover a group of small workplaces, or the workers of contractors or agencies in the same workplace;



• the right for safety reps to issue improvement notices to employers who are not complying with health and safety regulations, and to call in an enforcement officer if the employer does not put things right; and



• a legal requirement on employers to respond to issues raised by safety representatives.