Health and Safety Bulletin
May 2004
BECTU National Health and Safety Committee
At its meeting in February the Committee heard reports from A&E Division (including a serious fall from height accident at Hammersmith Apollo); BBC (including a customised short course on Construction (Design and Management) Regulations) and a HSE site visit; Clear Channel (including the establishment of a company H&S website); NTL (including problems of refusal of time off for H&S training, lone working, long hours and the need to reinstate the Broadcasting Safety Committee) and the Labs (including a significant number of reps attending BECTU H&S courses).
Workers Safety Adviser (WSA) Challenge Fund
The HSE Challenge Fund is being made available at a rate of £1m per year over 3 rounds covering 2004-5, 2005-6 and 2006-7. The aim is to encourage the development of WSA's – who could, if best practice is adopted, be akin to Roving Safety Reps – in sectors currently without an established structure of Safety Reps. There is a requirement for partnerships (eg with employers) rather than any unilateral trade union approach. The maximum grant per round is £100,000 and sectors covered in the previous WSA pilot will be at a clear advantage in applying.
BECTU has examined the possibility of a 1st Round bid for freelances working in TV. Potential partner organisations would be PACT and TAC. However, severe constraints on 1st Round bids have been placed by the extraordinarily tight timetable imposed by HSE (leaving very little time for new projects as opposed to existing pilots) and by the strict financial limits on engaging and paying WSA's. (Thereby ruling out some of the experienced individuals already active in H&S).
In the light of this, and of the need for clear partnership support, it appears unlikely at the time of writing that BECTU will be able to participate in the 1st Round. However, the experience of drafting and bid, conducting preliminary discussions with partners and identifying potential WSAs has provided invaluable foundation work for a possible bid in future rounds.
Safety Reps' Regulations
As anticipated in the last Bulletin, the Government has abandoned its plans to harmonise and revise the Safety Reps Regulations. This was greeted with mixed feelings by trade unions, who would welcome some progressive revisions of the Regulations but who are wary of overemphasising non-union Safety Reps.
BECTU continues to press via the TUC and by unilateral meetings with Labour politicians, for changes to improve Safety Rep cover for atypical workers including, for example, extending Regulation 8 rights (currently restricted to Equity and MU) to allow unions to send in roving reps or officials to sites (eg film locations) without Safety Representation.
'Work at Height' consultation
BECTU sent a response to the HSE consultation on the 'Work at Height' Regulations.
We emphasised the position of workers on temporary structures in film, television and theatres – especially when working in a context of long hours and/or tight deadlines. We also drew attention to recent serious incidents on Thunderbirds (a fatality), Phantom of the Opera and at Hammersmith Apollo.
HSE Moratorium on Publications
A significant item discussed at the latest meeting of BJAC (the HSE sectoral advisory committee) was on the moratorium on publications, (reported in the last Bulletin). The issue is not yet finally resolved but an HSE publication plan is apparently in preparation. In the meantime the 'Theatre Essentials' publications (to which BECTU contributed and approves) will be published by the industry (in the form of ABTT) with an HSE foreword approving the contents and an introduction of support from BJAC member organisations, including BECTU. This, if it happens according to plan, which deal with the immediate problem of the publication being delayed by the Moratorium.
New Minister For Health and Safety
Yet again, there is a new Minister for Health and Safety as a result of Des Browne's transfer to the Immigration brief. The new Minister is Jane Kennedy, MP for Liverpool Broadgreen, who has a background as a trade union official.
Bill to increase penalties
A 10-minute Bill was introduced into the House of Commons by Labour backbencher Andrew Love MP. The aim is to increase the penalties for health and safety offences by raising the cap on fines and introducing increased possibilities of imprisonment. The prospect of real progress on the Bill was not clear at the time of writing, owing to the constraints on Parliamentary time.
Hazards Conference
Reminder: The National Hazards Conference is being held at UMIST, Manchester from July 16th to 18th. Further details from Head Office.
BECTU health and safety courses
15 students have attended Part 1 of the BECTU H&S course (held on 29-30 March) based on the TUC Stage 1 course and accredited with the Open College Network. The second part of the course will be run in May (17-19). The students attending are as follows:
Tom Zwitserlood - Lyceum
Amanda Turner - ENO
Martin Carrigan - ROH
Ed Bridges - ROH
Jenny Davys - Intelfax
Matt Harrington - Apollo Victoria
Andrew Cole - BBC
Nicholas Hacking - Freelance
Gary Loftus - NTL
Neal Williams - BBC
Tim Hill - BBC
Annemarie Pennycook - Mersey TV
Brian Shorthouse - Colour Film Services
Jared Thomas - BBC
Peter Lawrence - Crown Castle
There will be two further H&S courses this year - June 14-15 and July 15-16 at BECTU Head Office, and 27-29 September and 18-20 October again at BECTU Head Office. Please contact Tracey Hunt if you are interested in attending.
Housekeeping
We have a some extra copies of the TUC Hazards folder updates for 2002 and 2003, if you have the Hazards folder and need these updates (or any others for preceding years), please contact Tracey Hunt at Head Office.
If you have completed a Stage 1 Health & Safety Reps course either with the TUC or with BECTU, and you have not had your Health & Safety Reps card, please contact Tracey Hunt at Head Office, and we will make arrangements for you to get a card.