Being a union health and safety rep
Jan 10 2008
I was wondering what people's views were on being a union H&S rep, especially from those in the anti-union camp.
I'm generally anti-union, but being an official H&S rep gives you all kinds of legal rights you wouldn't otherwise have – to witness risk assessments, inspect your work place, paid time for training and meetings…
It's proving useful in a current dispute over "flexible working" I'll post more about soon anyway.
Are there any downsides to it? What?
Or would you just say it's comparable to, say, NGO work which isn't related to working class struggle?
Jan 10 2008
#2
Is it like being a shop steward where you have to criticise unofficial action etc? Otherwise why not. H &S is really useful to know.
Jan 10 2008
#3
jef costello wrote:
Is it like being a shop steward where you have to criticise unofficial action etc?
presumably, if action is on H&S. but at my place this has happened a fair bit on a low level with no repercussions, don't know of any counter examples...
Jan 10 2008
#4
John. wrote:
presumably, if action is on H&S. but at my place this has happened a fair bit on a low level with no repercussions, don't know of any counter examples...
well you can legitimately refuse to do things on h&s grounds, I meant in terms of wildcat action.
Jan 12 2008
#5
Sorry, haven't read the other thread, so I might be missing something.
BTW, I'm not "anti-union". I'm anti-business unionism. I think there's a significant difference.
Anywho..... Would the position be an elected one or appointed? I think this is the key. If you're elected by your co-workers and remain on the "shopfloor", I don't think it's a problem. I don't have a problem with there being paid time off to attend training classes. I guess I wonder what the quid pro quo might be. Perhaps a multi-tiered system of issue resolution which ties up the issue in endless meeetings, mediation or arbitration.
Thye one thing about H&S stuff is that there's a bit more of a wedge to it than with being a shop steward. If a workplace or job is pretty freaking hazardous it's a bit easier to rally co-workers to take forms of direct action. I think it might be a bit easier to push the envelope as such.
Jan 28 2008
#6
The downside of being the union health and safety rep is not that different from the downside of being elected shop steward - in fact, in my experience, the same people often moved seamlessly from one post to the other. That is to say, your colleagues see you as the embodiment of the union and when that happens it is extremely difficult to maintain and defend a consistent anti-union positiion. The perks that go with the job also go with being union rep. It doesn't of course mean that a colleague who takes on a job like that automatically becomes an anti working class bureaucrat for ever more, but any entanglement with the union is bound to involve you in all sorts of conflicts between your position as worker and your role as union rep. For someone who already has a certain consciousness of the real role of the union I can see no political benefit.
Jan 28 2008
#7
There's no practical benefit either.
I work for a large utility that prides itself on "good" health and safety. It's a complete con. They produce reams of stuff on risk assessments, safe conditions of work, method statements, forms and procedures for this and that and know full that everyone cuts corners because this is the only way the job can get done. You haven't got time to read all the garbage and this easily turns H&S into a means of workplace repression. A worker with some 30 years service took a delivery late last year and skipped some of the procedures. He did this because he was rushing around trying to get other jobs done because basically after years of redundancies there's not enough workers to do the job properly. The chemical in the tankers was not as labelled, it produce a toxic gas cloud (which dissipated safely) when mixed with another chemical and he was dismissed instantly with his pension gone - I estimate it to be a financial penalty of well over a hundred and fifty grand and he won't get a job anywhere else. The safety rep had to say that procedures weren't followed and despite the fact that this worker had got the firm out of trouble on numerous occasions and was trying his hardest in difficult condtions he was down the road. It was further used as an "example" to the rest of us.
The unions and safety reps (interchangeable) say things like "don't accept the delivery, work by the rules", but aside from no-one having time to read the rules (you would have to spend all day) ,if you did make a stand, you are marked and they will have you later (I've my own experience of this).
The safety reps are like the stewards; there are some genuine guys who feel they are representing the workers but they are mostly arse-lickers and management wannabees who want to be noticed. In the former case they are subsumed into endless, demoralising management meetings (away from other workers) where they continually bang their heads against a brick wall.
If I wore all the safety gear I was supposed to I would suffer a large degree of sensory deprivation and be even more dangerous to myself and others. The problems are manpower and cost and H&S procedures do not and will not address these issues. Generally speaking, the safety reps are management stooges. The only times that we've got anywhere on these issues are when we have stood together and refused point blank to undertake certain jobs. Even here the management will bring in the safety rep to show us how the job can be be done "as safely as possible".
Jan 29 2008
#8
thanks for the responses.
Alf wrote:
The downside of being the union health and safety rep is not that different from the downside of being elected shop steward - in fact, in my experience, the same people often moved seamlessly from one post to the other.
yup (I'm both)
Quote:
That is to say, your colleagues see you as the embodiment of the union and when that happens it is extremely difficult to maintain and defend a consistent anti-union positiion.
right this is true enough. Although my line with my members is that the union's only god for what we can do for each other, in our one workplace (The rest of my branch are pretty good), and that the national union will act against us.
Quote:
The perks that go with the job also go with being union rep.
Well mostly, but safety reps can call all-worker meetings, not just members (tho i always invite non-members and temps too). Also in workplaces with no recognised union, safety reps still get the same rights, whereas stewards wouldn't.
Quote:
It doesn't of course mean that a colleague who takes on a job like that automatically becomes an anti working class bureaucrat for ever more, but any entanglement with the union is bound to involve you in all sorts of conflicts between your position as worker and your role as union rep. For someone who already has a certain consciousness of the real role of the union I can see no political benefit.
I think this is something I hope to learn in time. nothing like that has happened yet really. if i do find it i'll quit
Jan 29 2008
#9
Steven: if you're also the shop steward, wouldn't it have been better to have asked whether communists can be shop stewards?
Jan 30 2008
#10
I already did one of those! http://libcom.org/node/7983
I wanted to see if there were any different comments here.
I think some of baboon's points aren't relevant - some are about the type of person. And I don't see how something like this is a valid criticism:
Quote:
The unions and safety reps (interchangeable) say things like "don't accept the delivery, work by the rules", but ... if you did make a stand, you are marked and they will have you later (I've my own experience of this).
With everything we have to try to get people to stick their heads over the parapet, but then stick together when the axe comes swinging. As for H&S being about forcing workers to do more work, of course that's the bosses' way, but we should be fighting for the removal of hazards where possible, and getting the bosses to do the extra work/payment. Of course reps can't make them do this alone, but it means they have legal rights to get all the facts from management, which workers can then use to organise around. No?
Jan 30 2008
#11
Get a hold of the SolFed's using health and safety at work as a organising tool (well that's what it is about, i can't remember the exact title) if you do decide to become H&S rep, as it is really informative. You can buy a copy from SLSF just pm me. 
Jan 30 2008
#12
like i said, i'm an H&S rep and shop steward. is the pamphlet online?
edit - i see it here. will take a look. should go in libcom library...
http://www.solfed.org.uk/booklets/pdfs/health-and-safety-at-work.pdf
Feb 1 2008
#13
Steven, the shop and safety rep, dismisses the point about the "type of person" who get involved with the above work based positions. But it's integral to the question and serves to underline the real nature, the real function of such positions - unpaid agents for the bosses and the state.
The role of shop stewards, safety reps or any other work based representatives of the workers has always been an attraction, a convenient vehicle, for those seeking to move into the lower levels of management. That much is well known to a large majority of workers. These elements may start off with the best will in the world but what function do they perform - and this applies equally to shop stewards and safety reps; the function they perform will be first and foremost an agent of the boss.
Steven says his aims are to "try to get people to stick their heads above the parapit" and the "removal of hazards" through his work as safety rep. I don't think the "parapit" analogy is particularly useful for Stevens' argument because any safety reps will have to conform to and be enclosed within the company's procedures. It is common for managers to approach militant workers to sit on safety committess where they're trapped in the treacle of bureaucracy and management decision making. And any potential "hazards" can be removed or lessened by the action of the workers themselves. From Steven's point of view as a safety rep, does he feel he can goad the workers into action? (I fully agree that there's a role for minorities acting within the class, even individuals initially, but this is not to sit on management run committees).
From the mid-1800s to the end of that century, conditions of health and safety were a field of major and important struggles for the working class. Marx wrote a great deal about it pointing out the progressive role of elements of the factory inspectorate.
Today, health and safety is a form of workplace repression. The very people, the very structures (TUs), that sit on safety committees, endlessly going round in circles with management about "priorities" and "costs", are the same people, the same structures that have rubber-stamped job cuts, introduced "flexibility", "risk-management", cuts and speed ups of all kinds. And they will be called on to do a lot more of the latter in the coming years. This is happening in all the major industries, many of which use potentially very dangerous materials and practices, and many of which have been hit with job cuts.
"Workers' safety" (and the safety of the world beyond the workplace) is demonstrated in the devastating industrial "accidents" in western Europe alone in the last twenty odd years. The majority of which can be laid at the door of the bosses.
It may be that such "representatives" posts encourage the blatently ambitious or the genuine militant - if the latter prepare to have the fight gradually kicked out of you as you are ground down by an endless demoralising process of meaningless procedures, priorities and costs, the agenda determined by the bosses.
Our H and S training, once good for a brief period has been virtually cancelled. One time we'd have a day or two away, in conditions to learn something and also meet other workes (maybe a bit of overtime). But that's a thing of the past and been replaced by reams of procedures, e-mails, e-mail attachments, notices, references, that no-one has time to read, let alone digest properly. And the safety reps are taking over, all the time off they want, all the overtime they want, living in another world and cossetted by the bosses.
Safety rep = bosses' rep.
Feb 1 2008
#14
baboon wrote:
Steven, the shop and safety rep, dismisses the point about the "type of person" who get involved with the above work based positions. But it's integral to the question and serves to underline the real nature, the real function of such positions - unpaid agents for the bosses and the state.
The role of shop stewards, safety reps or any other work based representatives of the workers has always been an attraction, a convenient vehicle, for those seeking to move into the lower levels of management. That much is well known to a large majority of workers. These elements may start off with the best will in the world but what function do they perform - and this applies equally to shop stewards and safety reps; the function they perform will be first and foremost an agent of the boss.Steven says his aims are to "try to get people to stick their heads above the parapit" and the "removal of hazards" through his work as safety rep. I don't think the "parapit" analogy is particularly useful for Stevens' argument because any safety reps will have to conform to and be enclosed within the company's procedures. It is common for managers to approach militant workers to sit on safety committess where they're trapped in the treacle of bureaucracy and management decision making. And any potential "hazards" can be removed or lessened by the action of the workers themselves. From Steven's point of view as a safety rep, does he feel he can goad the workers into action? (I fully agree that there's a role for minorities acting within the class, even individuals initially, but this is not to sit on management run committees).
From the mid-1800s to the end of that century, conditions of health and safety were a field of major and important struggles for the working class. Marx wrote a great deal about it pointing out the progressive role of elements of the factory inspectorate.
Today, health and safety is a form of workplace repression. The very people, the very structures (TUs), that sit on safety committees, endlessly going round in circles with management about "priorities" and "costs", are the same people, the same structures that have rubber-stamped job cuts, introduced "flexibility", "risk-management", cuts and speed ups of all kinds. And they will be called on to do a lot more of the latter in the coming years. This is happening in all the major industries, many of which use potentially very dangerous materials and practices, and many of which have been hit with job cuts.
"Workers' safety" (and the safety of the world beyond the workplace) is demonstrated in the devastating industrial "accidents" in western Europe alone in the last twenty odd years. The majority of which can be laid at the door of the bosses.It may be that such "representatives" posts encourage the blatently ambitious or the genuine militant - if the latter prepare to have the fight gradually kicked out of you as you are ground down by an endless demoralising process of meaningless procedures, priorities and costs, the agenda determined by the bosses.
Our H and S training, once good for a brief period has been virtually cancelled. One time we'd have a day or two away, in conditions to learn something and also meet other workes (maybe a bit of overtime). But that's a thing of the past and been replaced by reams of procedures, e-mails, e-mail attachments, notices, references, that no-one has time to read, let alone digest properly. And the safety reps are taking over, all the time off they want, all the overtime they want, living in another world and cossetted by the bosses.
Safety rep = bosses' rep.
No wonder your politics are totally irrelevent to the workers.
Feb 2 2008
#15
That's not much of an analysis from you Werther is it - you've just repeated everything I said? What exactly is irrelevant?
I was talking to a post office worker yesterday who said that while his job was not particularly hazardous, the workers were getting weekly lectures from the safety rep and management of Do's and Don'ts. Don't leave the engine running on deliveries, take the keys out and lock up the wagon, work from the back of the van, nothing on the front seat, and so on. He said that the management knew full well that the job wouldn't get done in time if such rules were adhered to and they'd be in trouble for working overtime if they went over time. So they are fucked if they do and fucked if they don't and leave themsleves open to disciplinary action, involving the safety rep, by necessarily cutting corners; the same safety reps from the same union that has introduced wage cuts, speed-ups and job cuts.
Safety reps are now part of the management's armoury of workplace repression.
Feb 2 2008
#16
That's not a useful comment from werther.
but baboon you're not doing the "anti-union" argument in any good. You're picking on isolated examples of appallingly bad safety reps. Bad, bureaucratic unions don't even want reps to act like that, so you're not making any kind of argument against union safety reps who would act in a way that the unions would want them to. I don't know of any unions who would say that safety reps should show workers how to do their jobs. Unions say that H&S based on changing workers' behaviour is bad H&S.
telling workers what to do isn't the job of union reps, and no half decent ones would do that.
Your arguments here just don't stand up.
baboon wrote:
Safety reps are now part of the management's armoury of workplace repression.
All I've really done as a rep so far is get ergonomic equipment for people so they're less likely to be disabled by their computers, and try to get better facilities. How is that being "part of the management's armoury of workplace repression"?
baboon wrote:
Steven, the shop and safety rep, dismisses the point about the "type of person" who get involved with the above work based positions. But it's integral to the question and serves to underline the real nature, the real function of such positions - unpaid agents for the bosses and the state.
The role of shop stewards, safety reps or any other work based representatives of the workers has always been an attraction, a convenient vehicle, for those seeking to move into the lower levels of management.
This is an irrelevant point - this is about those roles as vehicles for revolutionaries. I don't want to be in management, so how is this relevant to me? It's not.
Quote:
Steven says his aims are to "try to get people to stick their heads above the parapit" and the "removal of hazards" through his work as safety rep. I don't think the "parapit" analogy is particularly useful for Stevens' argument because any safety reps will have to conform to and be enclosed within the company's procedures.
No it's not, because if you don't get what you want you can tell the other workers you tried negotiating, it didn't work, now you've got to take direct action.
Quote:
It is common for managers to approach militant workers to sit on safety committess where they're trapped in the treacle of bureaucracy and management decision making.
I've been to a couple of these, they seem pretty useless, so i'll probably stop going. This isn't a valid argument against being one.
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And any potential "hazards" can be removed or lessened by the action of the workers themselves.
You what? that's not what we should ever argue. we should always say that's not enough.
Quote:
From Steven's point of view as a safety rep, does he feel he can goad the workers into action? (I fully agree that there's a role for minorities acting within the class, even individuals initially, but this is not to sit on management run committees).
Well, not goad them, but let them know if they want things done - like to stop hotdesking, they will need to take action, so yes.
Quote:
Today, health and safety is a form of workplace repression. The very people, the very structures (TUs), that sit on safety committees, endlessly going round in circles with management about "priorities" and "costs", are the same people, the same structures that have rubber-stamped job cuts, introduced "flexibility", "risk-management", cuts and speed ups of all kinds. And they will be called on to do a lot more of the latter in the coming years. This is happening in all the major industries, many of which use potentially very dangerous materials and practices, and many of which have been hit with job cuts.
That's not even true. Yes the union leaderships rubber-stamped most of that, but not the low-level safety reps or anything.
Quote:
And the safety reps are taking over, all the time off they want, all the overtime they want, living in another world and cossetted by the bosses.
Safety rep = bosses' rep.
Again, this may be true at your work, but this is not even what unions want reps to act like
Feb 4 2008
#17
Obviously obtaining "ergonomic equipment" is not "workplace repression". What I'm talking about are structures, mainly trade union structures, that are prevalent throughout all the major industries. And these structures themselves and the framework that they work in are a (growing) part of workplace repression. This has to be seen also within the context of a generally more aggressive and bullying management which again is affecting all the major industries.
The main framework for safety committees is for meetings and agreements with the management (you say yourself about "negotiations" , while indicating that these meetings are of no use). It may not apply to you but it is relevant to the working class that individuals with ambitions towards management are drawn into workplace committees as "worker representative". Why? Because this is an ideal vector for them. As I said above, this simple fact is well understood by the majority of workers. It doesn't deny the fact of the genuine militant trying to have a voice but on a safety committee this voice necessarily, because of the management function of this organism, becomes muted, conciliatory and part of the system.
You seem to find it incredulous that workers can act on their own?
Whatever's relevant to you or not is not the question. It is what is the function of workplace safety representatives on a class wide basis?
Alright, steven.
I (and others) posted something about being an H&S rep on this old thread: -
http://libcom.org/forums/organise/getting-fucked-over-with-wages-again