TUC issues safety demands before any return to work after lockdown

From the TUC


The TUC is today calling on government to introduce tough new measures to ensure that before lockdown restrictions are eased, all employers assess the risks of their staff team returning to work outside the home.

In a new report, the TUC outlines what government and employers need to do to keep workers safe at work after lockdown is eased, and to give staff the confidence they need:

Risk assessments in every workplace 

The union body is demanding that every employer in the UK be required to carry out a specific Covid-19 risk assessment, developed in consultation with unions and workers. 
The assessment must:

• Identify what risks exist in the workplace and set out specific steps to mitigate them, including through social distancing.
  
• Be agreed with the staff trade union, where there is one. 
  
• Be signed off by one of the UK’s 100,000 trade union health and safety reps, or by a Health and Safety Executive (HSE) inspector, to make sure that it is robust.
  
• Be completed and communicated to workers before they are expected to return to their normal place of work, which means that employers should start work on their assessments now.
  

Employers who fail to complete their risk assessments or put the appropriate safety measures in place should face serious penalties, including prosecution.

Workers have been failed 

These are demanding measures, which represent a step-change in the UK’s approach to health and safety at work, says the union body.

But the TUC believes that too many workers have already been put at unnecessary risk during the pandemic, including through lack of personal protective equipment (PPE) and inadequate social distancing procedures.  

Safety concerns

New TUC polling, also published today, shows that 2 in 5 (40%) workers surveyed, along with those who have recently become unemployed, are worried about returning to the normal place of work, including half (49%) of women.

Asked about their specific concerns:

• 2 in 5 (39%) are concerned about not being able to socially distance from colleagues when back at work, and over a quarter (28%) are concerned about not being able to socially distance from customers or clients.
  
• Over a third (34%) are concerned about exposing others in their household to greater risk.
  
• Nearly 1 in 6 (17%) workers across the economy are concerned about not having access to appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) at work.
  

TUC General Secretary Frances O’Grady said: 

Many employers have struck sensible deals with unions to protect workers’ health, safety and wellbeing. But too often decent employers are let down by those who play fast and loose with safety. 

We need tough new measures from government to reassure working people that their health and safety is a priority. Too many workers have already been forced to put their health on the line during this pandemic.

We all want everyone to get back to work and start rebuilding Britain. But workers need confidence that they won’t have to put themselves or their families at unnecessary risk.

Government must ensure that every employer performs a comprehensive risk assessment before asking staff to return to work. And bosses who don’t take steps to protect workers should be prosecuted.

If workers are asked to work in conditions they think are unsafe, they can refuse. And they should know that their unions will have their back.

Tulip Siddiq makes a passionate plea for her EU residents

BrentARC steps up rights campaign over Operation Skybreaker

Brent is one of five London boroughs to be chosen as the target for Operation Skybreaker. This follows targeting of the borough by racist organisations such as the BNP, Britain First and the South East Alliance and by the UK Border Agency and Home Office through the racist van and raids on tube stations.

Today the Brent Against Racism Campaign (BrentARC) will be in Wembley Central  distributing the leaflets below informing the public and businesses about their rights regarding Operation Skybreaker.

The leaflet below is particularly aimed at small business owners:

Green MEP condemns 'xenophobic' UKIP poster campaign

LONDON'S Green MEP Jean Lambert has pointed to the chasm between UKIP claiming to defend British workers jobs, while doing nothing to defend their rights at work.

Speaking on the BBC today, she said:

Today an anti-EU poster campaign has been launched, suggesting that UK jobs are under threat from EU migrants.

There is no fixed number of jobs so it is misleading to assume that a British worker loses out every time a non-UK national gets a job. We should also not assume that every vacant job has a local applicant with the necessary skills.

We should be ensuring everyone in work has the same rights and earns a living wage. UKIP has not once defended workers' rights in the European Parliament and frequently speaks of such rights - to control working time, to parental leave, to equal treatment - as "barriers to business".

These posters represent crocodile tears for British workers.

She added:

This xenophobic campaign is just nasty: it is anti-foreigner and leaves many EU migrants - that's more than a million people in London alone, and British citizens from diverse backgrounds, wondering whether they should be here at all.

The Green Party believes the UK should be at the heart of the EU, with a prime seat at the decision-making table: not only to boost employment and workers' rights, but to ensure we influence EU standards on air quality, its responses to climate change and that the UK has a voice on key decisions about how and where we get our energy from in future.

Controversy over Council, Police, UKBA action in Cricklewood

Combined action by the UK Border Agency, the police and Brent Council on migrant workers has created controversy in Cricklewood which has spilled over intolively debate on the Streetlife forum of the Kilburn Times LINK

The local streets have long been a traditional picking up point for casual building labour in the early morning. It used to be mainly Irish workers but is now generally more recent migrants.

Mapesbury Safer Neighbourhood Team have cuiculated this notice via email, letters and the NW2 Residents' Association:

Some see this crackdown as partly a result of media hostility towards Eastern Europeans and point out that it was not raised as an issue in the past. It appears to reinforce prejudice and increase division when Brent Council was critical of the way UKBA raids on stations and the 'racist van campaign did just that. Nevertheless the Council are cooperating with UKBA in this case seeing it merely in terms of 'anti-social behaviour'.

A further point made is that while migrants are being attacked for living off  benefits they are also attacked when trying to get work.

Asking the public to note down vehicle registration numbers and pass them on to the police is likely to cause considerable controversy.