Health & Safety

The London Region places health, safety and welfare of its members at the top of the agenda.

As part of our work we produce health, safety bulletins, covering Asbestos to Bullying, Lone Working to Ventilation, (each consisting of an A4 page). You can see these by clicking on the bulletins button there are currently 81 of them.

In addition the regional health and safety department also has a health and safety news service with over 90 topics on subjects from AIDS to Chemicals, Welfare to Work Equipment. Theses are more detailed documents ranging from 3 to 6 pages.

As part of the service to members, we undertake site and workplace visits giving advice, support and detailed reports on all aspects of health and safety.
At the request of branches the department will also attend branch meetings as guest speakers to deal with issues of particular concern to their members.

NEWS

TORIES SHOW “True Colours”
OVER HEALTH AND SAFETY REGULATIONS
Plans by the conservative party to allow employers to arrange their own externally audited health and safety inspections and ban the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspectors from the workplaces. Shadow business secretary Ken Clarke has published a report, ‘REGULATION IN THE POST-BUREAUCRATIC AGE’, which stated that the Tories plan to “drastically curb” the powers of HSE inspectors “by allow companies to arrange their own externally audited inspections, and providing they pass, to then refuse entry to official inspectors”.

Previous attacks on health and safety regulations, in 2004, in a report, ‘Reversing the drivers of regulations’, listed what was termed ‘unnecessary regulation’ targeted for repeal or reduction. These included at the time, the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 and the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations (COSHH).

PLEURAL PLAQUES

GMB helped organise a third lobby (in two years) of the Houses of Parliament on 28th October to highlight yet again the plight of current, and future, sufferers from Pleural Plaques. This follows a decision from the House of Lords in October 2007 to stop the payment of compensation from employer’s insurance companies. Previous lobbies had help convince the government to undertake a consultation on the matter, though this closed over a year ago! Since then repeated promises from Ministers and the Prime Minister of a decision soon have resulted in nothing as yet.

GMB has a long history of campaigning on asbestos related issues and we intend to keep the pressure on the government until justice for pleural plaques sufferers has been achieved. To us the position is very clear – there has been negligence by employers in allowing exposure to the deadly asbestos, there has been a sharp increase in mental stress for those diagnosed with pleural plaques, particularly where they have seen friends, family and workmates go on to develop mesothelioma.

Where the GMB is recognised we can tailor health and safety training, that meets the specific need for joint training (reps and managers), these are usually on Risk Assessments and Safety Reps Rights. This is in addition to the basic health and safety training provided to the safety reps in the region.