Workplace risk assessment is too often treated as a simple tick-box exercise farmed out to outside consultants. It tends to look only at the traditional, visible risks and does not lead on to an ongoing social dialogue to improve working conditions.

A survey of safety reps done in the United Kingdom found that fewer than 30% thought they were adequately involved in risk assessment, 44% were not at all involved and 27% were not involved enough.

Risk assessment is often better in firms where workers' reps actively participate in it. In such cases, it covers a wider range of risks and results in more systematic preventive activities.

A participatory approach is more productive than an officialistic, rulebook-bound risk assessment. Working conditions contribute significantly to wide health inequalities. Workers with least control over their working conditions are more apt to face multiple risks. Participatory assessment can help to turn that trend around by giving a voice to those that currently lack one. They can inform changes to working conditions from their knowledge of what they are really like.

Systematic participation by workers and workers’ reps at all stages of risk assessment ensures that all risks will be properly considered and makes it easier to draw up a workable prevention plan.

This European conference aims to enable the sharing of experiences with participatory risk assessment practices as part of a much wider set of activities linked into the European Agency for Safety and Health’s risk assessment campaign.

• To register
• Provisional programme

Employee representation in health and safety is central to any workplace health policy. But in most European countries, a large number of workers have no such representation.

Structured representation for workers is the precondition for any worker participation in health and safety. Obviously, just having such a representation body is not necessarily enough to ensure effective participation, but experience in all the European Union countries shows that where such representation is lacking, the forms of direct participation sometimes propounded by employers are just a smokescreen. In some EU countries, regulations have been brought in to organize this kind of "direct participation" in firms with no mechanisms for representation. The United Kingdom and Belgium are cases in point. These regulations have delivered no benefits. Their sole purpose is to avoid possible irregularity proceedings.

Many surveys show that there is a strong connection between worker representation and the establishment of a prevention system in the workplace. For the trade union movement the coverage of all the workers by safety representatives is a major objective for the coming years.

EPSARE is a project launched by the Health and Safety Department of ETUI-REHS with the support of the Swedish SALTSA programme.

EPSARE is analysing the role and effectiveness of safety reps in improving work environment at workplace level.

Safety reps are one of the most diffused forms of workers’ representation at workplace level. Although there are no systematic statistical data in the European Union, we can assume that their amount is a seven digit number. Most safety reps are trade union members even if the different industrial relations systems make possible in some countries the election of non unionised workers as safety reps.

Very synthetically, we believe that there is a positive impact of worker’s participation in the health and safety activities at the workplace level. There is some evidence that worker participation can not be maintained with a minimal formal structure of representation and that trade unions usually play a key role in such a structure. However, we do not know adequately and systematically which factors (e.g., training, information, union strategies, legal rights, support by public authorities, etc.) may result in a positive impact of safety reps action in the health and safety.

There is already a lot of research on the legal framework for safety reps activities. However, research on the effectiveness of safety reps interventions both in the fields of health and safety and industrial relations is scarce. Thus, with only few exceptions, there is a lack of knowledge and debate (both scientific and political) on the factors and conditions that make safety reps an important asset in work environment strategies and interventions.

In the field of health and safety, there is an overall lack of attention to the analysis of effective interventions. Such a concern is not limited, however, to safety reps. It deals also with preventive services, company management and labour inspection. In a broad sense, major inputs (e.g., incentives, resources, pressure from the State, etc.) in health and safety do not result automatically in an improvement of working conditions. Rather, they are just pre-conditions and factors which potentially may lead to effective interventions. Indeed, systematic knowledge on all those conditions or factors including safety reps action is still lacking to a large extent.

In the field of industrial relations, there is a need to understand better the link between a global trade union strategy and the role of local representatives. Trade unions are not a monolithic body. The relations between the different levels of trade union organisations and the relations between the different fields of activities can be very complex and, some time, even conflictive.

The project’s central objectives are:

1. To describe and assess the effectiveness of safety reps intervention at the workplace level in selected countries.
2. To compare the characteristics (e.g., differences, similarities, advantages, disadvantages, etc.) of these interventions across countries.
3. To identify the preconditions for effective interventions and to elaborate methodological proposals for a better assessment of the safety reps intervention.
4. To build a network of trade unionists and social sciences researchers in that field.

• More information
• More information in Spanish

• Working safely in small enterprises in Europe.Towards a sustainable system for worker participation and representation
  by David Walters, 2002, 172 pages (EN - IT - SP - HG - CZ)
• Risk assessment at the workplace. A guide for union action
  by Pere Boix ;and Laurent Vogel, 1999, 80 pages  (EN - FR - CZ - SP)
• Europe under strain. A report on trade union initiatives to combat workplace musculoskeletal disorders
  by Rory O'Neill, 1999, 128 pages (EN - CZ - GR - IT)
• Prevention at the workplace. The impact of Community Directives on preventive systems in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Austria and Switzerland
  by Laurent Vogel, 1998, 224 pages (EN - FR - DE - CZ)
• Trade union training in health and safety. A survey of European practice in training
  by Anne Raulier and David Walters, 1995, 148 pages (EN - FR)
• Prevention at the workplace. An initial review of how the 1989 Community framework Directive is being implemented
  by Laurent Vogel, 1994, 408 pages (EN - FR - DE)

Belgium: initial findings of a health and safety committee survey
More than one in two Belgian union reps (51.3%) think that workplace health and safety committees (HSCs) are fulfilling their role properly, compared to 25.5% who think they could do better, and 26.8% who think management is not helping them do their job. The early findings of a survey on how HSCs are faring were unveiled on 11 February by the ETUI-REHS at its conference on workers' representation in health and safety.

• Read more

Belgium: trade unions want a workers representation in SMEs
A report from the Belgian Trade Union Confederation, CSC-ACV, shows that the workers of small companies from 10 to 19 workers are at the highest risk for serious accidents. There is a direct link between the poor level of prevention and the lack of safety reps. In Belgium safety reps are compulsory only in companies with 50 workers and more.

• (in French)

Italy: a trade union survey in hospitals
The workers' safety reps coordinating committee for Piedmont’s principal hospitals surveyed the organisation of prevention in the area in 2004. The survey covers 28 of the 34 hospitals in this region of northern Italy, and some 48,000 hospital staff.

Consultation of workers' safety reps is the significant variable in identifying hospitals that have a coherent prevention policy in place. Risk awareness among medical directors, risk assessment, programming of preventive measures and training are all markedly better in hospitals that have regular, systematic consultations with workers' reps.

• Read more

Spain: how to negociate health and safety provisions in collective agreements?
This guide published by ISTAS and CC.OO. in 2004 gives many examples of health and safety provisions in collective agreements. They are covering several thematics like workers' information and consultation, activities of and ressources for the health and safety committees, etc.

• Read more (in Spanish)

United Kingdom: sixth TUC survey of safety reps (June 2006)
This is the sixth TUC survey of safety reps. It is designed to provide the TUC and individual unions with information about who safety reps are, and what their experiences and needs are. The TUC will publish the results, and use them to campaign for better safety standards at work (including more rights for safety reps).

• Read the Safety Reps Survey Form

United Kingdom: union safety effect
A TUC document on union safety effect: "The most effective tool that we have in ensuring good health and safety at work is trade unions, because organised workplaces are safer workplaces. That is one of the main reasons that people join and stay in a union. When asked, 70% of new trade union members considered health and safety a "very important" union issue - more even than for pay".

National arrangements for workers’ health and safety representatives: transposition and implementation of the Framework Directive
By C. Stanzani and V. Kempa, TUTB Newsletter, n° 22-23, 2004.

• Read the paper 

Representation and consultation on health and safety in chemicals
by David Walters and Theo Nichols, Employee Relations, 28/3, 2006.

Joint arrangements involving representation and consultation with employees on health and safety matters lead to better outcomes in terms of health and safety awareness and performance than when health and safety management is left to employers to manage unilaterally .

There are a number of preconditions that need to be in place if representation and consultation on health and safety is to occur in a meaningful way. More significantly for current policy development in this field, however, is the finding that such preconditions were seldom present in anything like their entirety in the case studies we examined. As a result, the relevant legal requirements had not been implemented. Given that our choice of workplaces probably represented the better end of the industry we chose to study, we can assume that the preconditions we have identified will be even less frequently found elsewhere.

Since the election of a Labour Government in 1997 there have been frequent calls for a new, consolidated and improved regulatory basis for worker representation and consultation on health and safety. These demands have concerned inter alia:

• rationalising the existing multiple sets of regulations into one comprehensive set of regulations, and ensuring that all workers have access to representation;
• increasing the specific rights of trade union health and safety representatives,
• including giving them rights to issue quasi-legal notices and for their trade unions to initiate private prosecutions;
• making employers’ duties to respond to representations more explicit and onerous;
• giving representatives greater capacity to represent employees who are not employed by the same employer as they are, (including employees in small firms); and
increasing the role of regulatory agencies in seeking compliance with the legal requirements for representation and consultation.

To date no consolidation or strengthening has taken place. Instead the HSC has published a voluntary statement of principle on representation and consultation on health and safety. The chairman of the HSC has also publicly set his face against such legislative action, confirming that the direction preferred by current policy makers on health and safety is away from further regulation and towards emphasising voluntary effort and arguing that health and safety representatives do a good job precisely because they are not inspectors and can improve health and safety informally. Increasing their powers would dramatically change their job.

The evidence of our study, combined with that of previous work, suggests that existing legal requirements – on such matters as the provision of training, the making of representations to employers, the receipt of information, engagement in risk assessment, prior consultation over workplace changes that might affect OHS and liaison with inspectors — are all rarely acted upon in practice. In addition these and other requirements are rarely, if ever, the subject of enforcement by the regulatory agencies. If the wider legal basis were to be properly implemented it would considerably improve the present situation. Action to secure such implementation is therefore required.

• Read more

Factors associated with the activities of safety representatives in Spanish workplaces
by Ana M García, Maria José López-Jacob, Isabel Dudzinski, Rafael Gadea and Fernando Rodrigo
Published in Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 2007.

• Read the article
  

Factors influencing worker and safety rep participation – How to understand the OHS participation process
By Kaj Frick, in co-operation with John Sjöström.

• Read more

The role and effectiveness of safety representatives in influencing workplace health and safety
by David Walters (University of Cardiff), 2005.

This study presents a review of the quantitative and qualitative evidence for the link between worker representation and consultation and effective health and safety management. Through a series of detailed case studies in two sectors of the economy, it examines the dynamics of representation and consultation in improving health and safety performance. Its review of previous studies and the evidence of the case studies detailed in the report support a conclusion that joint arrangements, through which workers are represented and consulted on their health and safety, are likely to have better outcomes than arrangements in which management acts without consultation.
However, it suggests that arrangements for worker representation and consultation are dependent upon a number of preconditions for their effectiveness. These include a strong legislative steer, effective external inspection and control, demonstrable senior management commitment and capacity towards both health and safety and a participative approach, competent hazard/risk evaluation and control, effective autonomous worker representation at the workplace and external trade union support. Such preconditions were not present in the majority of the case studies and both they and the review of the wider literature suggest that changes in the structure and organisation of work mean that achieving them present considerable challenges. Nevertheless, the study found a number of examples of ways in which these challenges had been successfully addressed. It suggests therefore that there are important messages presented by these examples for regulators, trade unions and employers alike if worker representation and consultation is to be supported in realising its potential to contribute to improved health and safety outcomes.

The OHS-effect of worker participation in the Netherlands
By Jan Popma (Amsterdam University), English Summary of a Ph D Thesis, 2003.

• Read more

United Kingdom: the workers safety advisers pilot
A HSE report, 2003.
Workplaces with safety representatives and safety committees have significantly better accident records than those with no consultation mechanism, recording up to 50% fewer injuries. However, the majority of the workforce are not members of a trade union or employed in workplaces where unions are recognised. In this context, it is important to consider the most appropriate way in which effective representation can be developed in small firms and those workplaces with no union recognition agreements. One possible option to achieve this is through the work of independent, roving health and safety advisors, or Workers Safety Advisers (WSA). The purpose of this WSA pilot is to evaluate the effectiveness of a voluntary workers' safety advisors scheme by setting up and running pilots in a variety of employment sectors.

Barefoot research: a worker's manual for organising on work security
by Margaret Keith, James Brophy, Peter Kirby, Ellen Rosskam.
Published by the International Labour Organisation, 2002.

The manual has been developed to help empower workers to increase their level of control over their own work situations, to protect their health and well being, and to improve their level of basic security. This is a practical guide, providing workers, and employers, with tools to: identify work security problems, tackle problems from a worker centred perspective, use barefoot research tools, use the results of Barefoot Research to improve their work security, organize for work security.

The impact of trade union education and training in health and safety on the workplace activity of health and safety representatives
by David Walters, Peter Kirby and Faïçal Daly (Centre for Industrial and Environmental Safety and Health, South Bank University), 2001.

This research demonstrates the significance of trade union training in stimulating and supporting the workplace activities of trade union health and safety representatives. Such representatives engage in increased health and safety activity as a result of attendance on training courses and they perceive the training they receive to be a substantial support for their health and safety achievements as well as a significant aid in overcoming barriers to their workplace actions.

The research indicates a connection between the stimulating and supporting role of trade union training and its content and methodology. In particular it identifies the experience based, student centred, collective ethos of the pedagogy of labour education as fundamental in developing and reinforcing a worker-centred approach to health and safety. It suggests that it is this approach that provides trade union representatives with the confidence and skills to enable them to engage effectively in participatory health and safety management. The research also describes some of the challenges of availability, coverage and access to training that need to be taken into account when considering its importance. Finally, it outlines the implications of its findings for the future development of policy on competence and the role of training in representative worker participation in occupational health and safety in the United Kingdom.

Workplace consultation on health and safety
A report by the Institute of Employment Studies prepared for the Health and Safety Executive, 2000.

Statutory employee involvement in health and safety at the workplace: a report of the implementation and effectiveness of the safety representatives and safety committees regulations 1977
by David Walters and S. Gourlay, 1990.

Australia: worker participation in health and safety. A review of Australian provision for worker health and safety representation
By Sarah Page, HSE, 2002.

• 
  A Journal for Health and Safey Committees (France)
• Trade Union Center for Training and Information of Safety Reps, Milan (Italy)
• 
  Information website for safety reps, Bologna (Italy)
• 
  Information website for safety reps by the Italian Trade Union Confederation CISL (Italy)
• 
  Spanish bulletin for safety Reps (Spain)
• 
  (UK)
• 
  TUC (UK)
• 
  HSE (UK)
• 
  Public and Commercial Services Union - PCS (UK)
• 
  New Zealand Council of Trade Unions

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