What is Risk Assessment?

Risk Assessment is the process of identifying what hazards exist in a workplace and how likely these hazards are to cause harm to workers and others in order to decide what prevention or control measures are needed.

By law, every employer must conduct a risk assessment on the work their employees do. Workers should be properly informed about their working conditions, the risks and how to avoid them.

Your safety rep should be asked to comment on them but the responsibility of doing a risk assessment lies with management.

A risk assessment should identify all the hazards and whether they have the potential to cause harm. It should enable and prioritise the measures that need to be taken and this should include the health and safety information and training that must be given to employees.

The findings of risk assessments carried out in City Council operations must be kept as a written record. Your employer has a legal obligation to inform its employees of the findings.

Who is my Safety Rep?

Every workplace should display a HSE document - "Health and Safety Information for Employees" entitled "Health and Safety Law".

This should state the names and locations of trade union safety representatives along with the names of managers with health and safety responsibilities.

If you have any problems obtaining the name of your safety representative, please contact the Branch Office on 01782 236750 or 232263 or your Convenor. 

I often work alone - I find that I worry about Health and Safety.

Firstly, to be classed as a Lone Worker does not mean that you have to work in complete isolation. People who work alone face the same hazards as other workers but for lone workers the risk of harm is often greater.  It is essential therefore, that the risk of lone working should be taken into account when risk assessments are carried out. Your employer must ensure they take full account of the risks involved when working alone and make sure that they are avoided (see "what is risk assessment" above).

Stress At Work -  - if you would like a copy of this leaflet please quote the leaflet title and Stock Code 1925 when contacting the branch office

• Stress at work can cause serious health problems and ruin your life.
• Stress at work is on the increase, it is becoming increasingly common.
• Stress is not good for you. It is neither a natural part of life nor necessary to get the job done well. Nor is it an inevitable result of work or something which just affects the weak. 
• There is a clear different between challenge, stimulation, pressure and stress.  

Stress at work can be prevented and controlled.

If you or a colleague believe you are suffering from stress at work, there are things you can do to try and deal with the problem.

1. Prevention.
2. Employment Tribunals
3. Legal Action for stress claims

Your employer has a duty to provide a safe place and safe systems of work. Failure to do so may amount to negligence by the employer.  

If you are suffering from stress in the workplace, raise your concerns with your UNISON Safety Representative.

Sickness Absence - an unhealthy attitude  - if you would like a copy of this leaflet please quote the leaflet title and Stock Code 1561 when contacting the branch office

Employers should be sympathetic when their staff are off sick because of ill health or injury. Equally Unison wants to see persistent misuse of sick leave by colleagues managed because it imposes extra pressures on other staff. 

Specific issues UNISON wants employers to address include:

• Reducing work-related injury, ill health and stress

• Tackling workplace bullying

• Providing measures to relieve pressures outside work, such as childcare and carers leave

• Providing an independent telephone help and counselling service which can provide financial and legal advice as well as stress counselling.

• Providing rehabilitation programmes following more serious illness, including phased returns to work, adapting work and the workplace environment, or redeployment with training if necessary.

• Providing properly resourced, independent occupational health services.

These measures will be the most effective way to reduce sickness absence and ensure good attendance records.

If you have any queries on sickness absence or require a representative to attend a sickness counselling or other meeting with you, please contact your Convenor.

Caring for Cleaning Staff - if you would like a copy of this leaflet please quote the leaflet title and stock number 1792 when contacting the branch office.

Cleaners are often expected to:

• Use old, worn-out and poorly maintained floor-cleaning machines and other equipment.
• Regularly lift heavy bags, bins and equipment, sometimes up and downstairs. Cleaners are particularly at risk from back injuries, often caused by the equipment they use and the way they have to use it.
• Use cleaning fluids and other chemicals without proper information or training.
• Wear old tatty overalls that they have to clean themselves
• Use outdated methods of working that are potentially dangerous.

Your employer must:

• Protect you from hazards and dangers, such as exposure to chemicals that might put your health at risk.
• Provide you with information and training.
• Provide equipment and clothing to keep you safe.
• Consult you on health and safety issues.

If in doubt, contact your health & safety representative for further advice. 

Is Work making you sick?

Do you suffer from:

• aches and pains in your neck, shoulders, arms or wrists

• regular infections

• depression or anxiety

• back pain

• skin rashes

• headaches

• sore eyes

• sore throat

• breathing problems?

Maybe you just feel thoroughly uncomfortable and exhausted by the end of the working day? If you do, then it maybe caused by your work.

You have the right to be safe and healthy at work.

As a UNISON member you can raise any complaints, queries or worries with your UNISON safety representatives.

Your working conditions play a very important role in your health. Often the dangers you face are hidden rather than obvious. Seemingly harmless working practices and conditions can lead, in time to serious illness.  Yet work itself is not what is making people ill. Bad working practices and poor health and safety procedures are the cause.  Almost all work-related illnesses are avoidable and UNISON is there to help ensure that health and safety of every one of our members.  Contact your health & safety rep for advice and information. 

Women At Work

Stress at work? Back pain? Eye strain? TAKE ACTION.

Women's Health & Safety matters to UNISON.

Nearly half of the workforce and 72% of Unison members are women. Women are more likely than men to be affected by a work-related illness, due to the kind of areas women work in.

According to a TUC report:

• women are more likely than men to experience back strain, skin diseases, headaches and eyestrain

• young women are three times more likely than men to be physically attacked at work

• women are more likely to work in boring, repetitive and stressful working conditions then men

• many women work in areas where the risk of ill-health or injury is high. They can also be exposed to a double risk where their paid work is similar to the work they do at home.

Unison wants employers to take women's health and safety seriously. They should always consider women's health and safety concerns when carrying out risk assessments, planning new systems of work, introducing new work equipment or personal protective equipment or considering any changes that could effect women's health.

Women's health and safety matters to UNISON:

• Safety representatives want to ensure that women work in a safe environment

• They want women to be aware that they have legal rights to help them carry out their duties

• On your behalf they can investigate any problems, inspect your workplace and raise health and safety issues with your employer

As a Unison member you can raise any complaints, queries or worries with your safety representative. 

Pregnancy Rights

Since 1st December 1994 there has been special protection for pregnant women and new mothers at work. Your employer must make sure that your working conditions will not put your health or your baby's health at risk.  It is unlawful for your employer to sack you just because you can't do the same work as before due to pregnancy, recent birth or breastfeeding.

To exercise the right described above you must:

• tell your employer in writing that you are pregnant or breastfeeding, or that you have given birth in the last 6 months.

• if you employer asks in writing for proof that you are pregnant, show him/her your certificate of pregnancy from your doctor or midwife.

You should discuss any job-related concerns about your health or the health or your baby with your doctor or midwife. If they advise you that there could be a risk, ask for a letter which you can show to your employer so that he/she can take this into account. 

Examples of working conditions and agents which the law recognises might harm your health of safety:

• mental and physical fatigue and other physical burdens

• handling of loads entailing risk of injury

• movements and postures

• shocks, vibration or movement

• travelling (either inside or outside the place of work)

• noise

• extremes of hot and cold

• ionising or non-ionising radiation

• work in hyperbaric atmospheres (eg pressurised enclosures and diving)

• biological agents

• chemical agents

• mercury and mercury derivatives

• antimitotic (cytotoxic) drugs

• carbon monoxide

• lead and lead derivatives

• underground mining work

Contact your health & safety rep for further advice.

Safe Driving At Work - if you would like a copy of this leaflet please quote the title and stock code number 1969 when contacting the branch office

More UNISON members are killed as a result of driving as part of their job then from any other type of work related accident.

Nationally over 3000 people are killed on the roads every year, and 40,000 are seriously injured.  The Health & Safety Executive have estimated that 30% of those are likely to occur while the driver is "working".

Because road safety is enforced by the police, few employers see it as being a health and safety issue.  Their main concern is that the vehicle is taxed, insured, maintained, and the driver has an appropriate licence.

UNISON believes that work-related road safety must be given a much higher priority. The safety of our members at work, while driving or being driven, is just as important as other safety concerns in the workplace, and the risks should be assessed in the same way.

Any risk assessment must therefore include risks from driving if they exist.

Issues to be considered include:

• hours of work - on of the main causes of road traffic accidents is fatigue.

• training if required

• carrying of equipment

• carrying people

• mobile phones and driving

• condition of vehicles

• type of car

• what to do in the event of breakdown

• speeding

• motorbike and cycle users

If you have any queries, contact your Health & Safety Representative.

Needlestick Injuries - (injuries from discarded needles) if you would like a copy of this leaflet please quote the title and stock code number 1743 when contacting the branch office 

Many UNISON members face the daily risk of injury from discarded needles because of their work.

The main risks involves street cleaning, refuse collection, amenity horticulture, and general cleaning and care-taking workers who may come across carelessly or maliciously discarded hypodermic needles.

If a used needle punctures the skin then there is a risk of infection from a range of viruses and other blood-borne diseases including hepatitis D, hepatitis B and HIV.

Many needlestick injuries are avoidable.

The Tidy Britain Group recently surveyed 239 local authorities - roughly half the total. They uncovered 266 injuries due to discarded needles between 1995 and 1998 - 60% of those were injuries to local authority employees.  However, only 51% of local authorities had trained street sweepers and provided them with kits to protect them from discarded needles and only 64% of local authorities had an official procedure to recover discarded needles if they were found by members of staff.

In the case of needlestick injuries, any risk assessment must include both reducing the risk of an injury and also setting up procedures for what happens if an incident occurs.

The Control of substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1999 also require employers to do a risk assessment where hazardous substances are concerned. This includes the risk of infection from needlestick injuries. These regulations also require health surveillance where workers are exposed to dangerous viruses such as after a needlestick injury.

Contact your Health & Safety representative for further advice.

Bullying at work is an abuse of power, an infringement of your dignity and respect and causes stress and ill health.

• Unison wants employers to take bullying seriously and is not tolerated.
• Investigate all incidents/Investigate and control the causes
• Provide independent counselling and support.

If you are being bullied don't put up with it. Contact your Convenor.