The role of Health and Safety Representatives in COVID-19

The headline recommendations are:

• The UK’s OHS infrastructure needs to be strengthened in terms of representational mechanisms that legitimise independent worker voice.
• Statutory support for independent and trained Health and Safety workplace representation should be reinforced and extended.
• Occupational and Statutory Sick Pay need review and reform to prevent workplace infection during pandemics.
• There needs to be recognition that employment protection and collective representation for workers on non-standard contracts is not conducive to risk prevention at the workplace and can promote transmission.
• The powers and capacity of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in relation to UK workplaces have to be restored and strengthened, including ensuring that employer responsibilities under the Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013 (RIDDOR) are enforced.

The research context

Pre-COVID-19 studies demonstrated the importance of effective and autonomous trade union representation as ‘an essential monitoring and correcting mechanism to effectively reduce risks at work’ (Frick, 2011: 974). While the regulatory model of worker representation on health and safety may have lost relevance in the light of the reduced coverage of trade unions it is a model that demands revisiting in the absence of adequate alternatives and in the context of a pandemic. The pandemic has laid bare the weakness of the UK’s Occupational Health and Safety infrastructure and absence of Health and Safety Committees at organisational and workplace level. There has been limited consideration of the role of workplace representatives and trade unions in COVID-19 risk assessment and the protection of worker health and safety, but also as key agents in public health. Trade unions represent workers in public services working on the frontline and play a unique role in articulating their experiences of pandemic and advocating their interests at work. This project explores the balance between productivity, public health and worker health and safety during the pandemic, with a focus upon exemplary and future practice.

Summary Findings

The research is based on interviews with 13 key experts in the field of health and safety, a survey of 648 Trade Union Congress (TUC) health and safety (H&S) reps and 11 case studies. The latter are based on 35 interviews with workplace and employer representatives in key sectors: financial services, the ambulance service, maternity services, food production, food retail and distribution, construction, the underground and bus transport.

• The survey of TUC health and safety representatives found that in November 2021 only 15% of reps considered the risk of COVID-19 to be low and only one quarter (19%) had confidence in their employers to protect the health and safety of the workers they represented in future waves of pandemics. Nearly half (48%) did not feel that their employers were supportive of their health and safety roles.
• However, the survey suggests that union representation over health and safety provides a sound basis for engagement with management in the pandemic. The frequency of negotiation or consultation over health and safety was positively associated with the confidence that representatives had in their employers (r=0.198, p=0.02) to protect worker health and safety.
• Over a third (35%) of health and safety reps reported increased formal or informal interaction with the employer during the pandemic. Negotiation or consultation took place over sick pay (31%), risk assessment (29%), work arrangements (27%) and PPE provision (21%).
• The health and safety rep survey confirms the importance of health and safety committees with union representation; their presence was positively associated with the frequency of consultation or negotiation (r=0.186, p=0.30) and formal engagement with management (r=0.145, p=0.046), but also with rep’s perception of managerial support (r=0.236, p<0.001).
• The survey suggests some changes to formal workplace and organisational health and safety structures as a result of the pandemic, although these were where there was existing representation. Approaching one third (29%) of reps reported the establishment of health and safety committees following the pandemic. The case studies also found limited expansion of workplace health and safety committees during COVID-19. Tri-partite responses at sector level, in public transport, were deemed effective. In contrast there was criticism of the deployment of ‘command and control’ responses in the NHS that marginalised trade unions and discouraged workers from raising concerns.
• The case study research highlights the proactive role played by health and safety reps during the pandemic in identifying and mitigating COVID-19 risk. Reps appreciated the legal basis for their role. Managers recognised their training and expertise and these formed the basis for social dialogue, negotiation and consultation over OHS.
• Health and Safety reps described themselves as the ‘eyes and ears’ of the workplace, reflecting their intimate knowledge of how the organisation of work created risk. Communication with the workforce on the ground was fundamental to mitigating risk and a key role was in ensuring compliance with regulations and overcoming resistance to them - challenging what was called ‘a culture of denial’. Unions were keen to ensure that COVID-19 did not become a disciplinary issue, although the tension between the educational and policing role was evident.
• Sick pay emerged as a major issue during COVID-19. in some workplaces there was limited access to occupational sick pay and SSP was an inadequate replacement. Reliance on SSP inhibits compliance with rules on self-isolation with workers attending work when symptomatic because they could not survive financially. There were specific issues for agency and self-employed workers who had no access to employment rights and limited or no access to sick pay and independent representation. There were also issues for migrant workers, more likely to be agency workers or contract cleaners.
• Union reps negotiated for full, basic or occupational sick pay for those shielding or self-isolating, for sick pay from day one and the relaxation of sickness absence schemes that previously could incur disciplinary outcomes. Exceptionally the RMT negotiated for cleaners working for contractors on the underground, normally on SSP only, to receive full pay from day one if they were off with COVID-19 symptoms. The union's successful negotiation for agency staff, outside their formal collective bargaining agreement, demonstrates the capacity of unions to influence conditions for non-standard workers in order to prevent workplace infection.
• In the survey one in five (20%) union representatives considered sick pay policies inadequate in supporting workers during the pandemic. Over one quarter of representatives reported changes to sickness absence policies (29%) and a quarter (25%) changes to attendance policies.
• The case studies demonstrated the exclusion from employment rights and collective representation of those in contracted out services and/or on non-standard contracts, including ‘self-employed’ and agency workers, often migrants. Exclusion, particularly access to sick pay, presented specific risks in terms of workplace infection.
• Key experts stressed the deleterious impact of the deregulation of OHS and weakness of the HSE following funding cuts, along with the under-reporting of COVID outbreaks by employers. These perceptions constituted a critique of the UK’s self-regulatory approach.
• When the survey was conducted only a small number of workplaces required all workers (6%) or some workers to be vaccinated (2%). Approaching half of representatives indicated that their union negotiated or was consulted (42%) over vaccination policy. Half of the representatives suggested that their unions did not have a vaccination policy (50%) although a quarter (25%) indicated that their unions had discussed vaccination policy. Only 7% of the representations reported a policy in favour of mandatory vaccination and an equally small number of representatives (8%) reported that their union had a policy against mandatory vaccination.