No Need For Reps To Go It Alone

Struggling safety reps feeling out of their depth can look forward to a big boost in support from unions, following a long list of resolutions adopted at a recent ACTU seminar emphasising the importance of reps as partners in the union business of securing safer workplaces.

Unions should boost their involvement in occupational health and safety issues, provide extra support for safety reps and tap into reps' value as union activists. These were among recommendations mooted at the ACTU's Reactivate Health and Safety at Work seminar held in Sydney on 13 and 14 May.

Participants at the seminar said audits should be conducted of health and safety representative networks to find out how many there are, what their needs are and which workplaces still do not have reps in place.

They said it was important to "increase the number of health and safety representatives in workplace and raise the level of support for them from the union movement".

"Active, effective and informed union health and safety representatives mean safer and healthier workplaces," the seminar conceded, adding that along with delegates, union health and safety reps were effective in building union membership and involvement.

But many are left to go it alone, they said. "Health and safety reps are often isolated and left to act alone in their workplace, which makes it difficult for them to be effective."

The full list of recommendations follow:

Consistent with the ACTU Future Strategies document, this seminar recommends that the union movement:

(a) recognise health and safety representatives as union activists;
(b) ensure that workers and unions conduct elections of health and safety representatives;
(c) conduct audits of health and safety representative networks to identify:
(i) the ratio of representatives to workers;
(ii) workplaces that do not have a representative; and
(iii) training requirements for representatives;
(d) develop union forums for health and safety representatives;
(e) ensure involvement of health and safety representatives in enterprise bargaining, as health and safety is integral to working conditions (eg. hours, breaks, workloads, work organisation);
(f) ensure joint workplace meetings between union delegates and health and safety representatives;
(g) ensure support by union organisers for health and safety representatives, as well as for union delegates;
(h) incorporate health and safety into union strategies for organising and recruitment;
(i) organise workplace meetings on health and safety; and
(j) ensure active workplace involvement in national health and safety campaigns

In recognition of health and safety problems arising from the current industrial relations climate, including the Cole Royal Commission, the 1996 Workplace Relations Act, and the changing nature of work and the labor market, trade unions need to campaign for:
(a) health and safety representation for workers currently without representation;
(b) pilot programs and legislative change for regional or roving health and safety representatives.

Trades and Labor Councils and affiliates need to participate in developing a common agenda for legislation, standards and codes of practice, and other activity from Commonwealth, state and territory health and safety agencies.

Effective union action requires a comprehensive framework of health and safety laws, which should include - but not be limited to - union right of entry, mandatory consultative arrangements, union-initiated prosecutions, corporate accountability, and provisional improvement notices.

Participants in this seminar encourage the ACTU to conduct similar seminars on an annual basis, and to incorporate occupational health and safety in future ACTU organising conferences.

Participants in this seminar will report its outcomes to unions, and work to have these outcomes implemented as a basis for future organising.

Resolution on the Cole Royal Commission

This seminar condemns the Cole Royal Commission for:
(a) its attacks on workers based on spurious allegations of misuse of health and safety laws;
(b) ignoring the real health and safety issues in the building and construction industry; and
(c) its recommendations that would create a health and safety structure in the industry that would reduce protection for workers, and increase the likelihood of industrial confrontation.

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Last modified: Tuesday, 15-Nov-2005 20:37:37 EST