It was whilst working at Royal Mail at the central Tomb Street sorting office in Belfast in 2002 that I first truly fathomed the transformational power of the trade union movement. A 20-year-old Catholic postman Daniel McColgan was murdered by the loyalist paramilitary group – the UDA in January 2002 as he arrived for work.…
It seems that every election, the parties tell us it’s the most important election for a generation. But this one genuinely could be. Whoever ends up forming the next government, at the top of their in-tray will be striking a new deal with our European neighbours as we leave the EU. That’s going to be…
The Musicians’ Union has 30,000 members the majority of whom are self-employed and have portfolio careers: gigging, teaching, working in freelance orchestras, session musicians or composers and songwriters working from home. As our member Stephen Wright recently told the Scottish TUC conference: “The gig economy: welcome to our world! We need to recognise that the…
The Conservative Party election manifesto includes a commitment to amend health and safety regulations, and many readers will be surprised and delighted to learn that, on this occasion, they are not proposing to reduce levels of protection. In fact, what the manifesto says is: “We will amend health and safety regulations so that employers provide…
An international standard for health and safety may sound like a good idea to a lot of people, but the current proposals for one would be bad news for many workers. The International Standards Organisation (ISO) is developing a standard, called ISO45001, for the certification of employers health and safety management systems, but throughout the…
The HSE has published a review of the way that the 2012 Control of Asbestos Regulations have been implemented. There was a requirement on the HSE to do this within the first five years of the regulations being implemented, but the HSE seems to have gone well beyond the requirements of the European Directive in…
Unions have long been critical of the failure of the HSE to regulate and enforce on occupational health risks. For instance we have asked for specific regulations on stress, lower exposure limits on dust and silica, and for the removal of all asbestos in the workplace, but none of these have happened. Now that the…
Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is there to protect workers from potential hazards to their health and safety; it must be used properly. However, the experiences of hundreds of women tells us that they have not been provided with appropriate PPE to carry out their jobs. This is exposing women to several health and safety risks.…