metal worker

Trade Unions regard health and safety as a key issue because there is no more fundamental a right than the entitlement to return home from your work safe and well.

While traditionally, "health and safety" has been perceived by some as preventing accidents, there has been a far greater emphasis in recent years on health aspects.

Unions see the prevention of illness - both physical and psychosocial - as being a key part of our work. This is why there is now far more emphasis on areas like exposure to carcinogens, which can have long-term health effects, and the impact of stress and bullying in the workplace on workers' mental health. Issues such as musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) are also recognised now as causing far more injury to workers than realised before.

Safety Representatives, selected by the workforce and supported by trade unions, have a key legally-protected function to undertake in working alongside management to prevent injury, illness and loss of live.

The advent of the Covid-19 pandemic – and the impact it made on society as a whole, but especially in workplace settings such as hospitals, nursing homes, meat-processing plants etc. - has made us all aware of the importance of preventing ill-health in the workplace.

There are a variety of tools and techniques that we know are effective in making workplaces safer. Workers themselves have a huge role to play in this. That is why Safety Representatives, selected by the workforce and supported by trade unions, have a key legally-protected function to undertake in working alongside management to prevent injury, illness and loss of live.