Health, Safety and Industrial Democracy: Some Further Considerations
| Pages | 23-27 |
| Date | 01 January 1981 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/eb054963 |
| Published date | 01 January 1981 |
| Author | Phil Beaumont,Robert Coyte,John Leopold |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Health,
Safety and Industrial Democracy:
Some Further Considerations
by Phil Beaumont, Lecturer, Department of Social and Economic Research, University of Glasgow
Robert Coyte and John Leopold, Lecturers Centre for Industrial Democracy, University of Glasgow
Introduction
In a recent article in this journal [1] Geoffrey Stuttard
argued that the provisions of the Health and Safety at
Work Act 1974 which provide for union appointed safety
representatives have important implications for extending
industrial democracy. The essence of this line of argument
is that the subject area of workplace health and safety,
which has for so long been dominated by unilateral
management decision making at the individual workplace
and a framework of common and statute law that has
taken a highly "paternalistic" attitude towards the issue of
employee and union involvement [2], is to become at least
an area of extensive joint discussion, and possible one of
joint decision making.
Admittedly in some firms there have long existed
voluntarily established joint health and safety committees
[3],
which has meant some joint discussion (and possibly
joint decision making) in the subject area, but as Stuttard
pointed out the safety representative provisions of the 1974
Act have enormous potential for extending joint discussion
and joint decision making in that for the first time a union
appointed representative at the workplace in Britain has
legal backing for his function. The position of the safety
representative in this regard contrasts sharply with that of
the shop steward who has traditionally received relatively
little support and backing from official union
constitutions, let alone from the provisions of legislation.
Union members are disproportionately
employed in industries with
above-average accident rates
The provisions for union appointed safety
representatives, which became law in October 1978, can
certainly be usefully seen in the above terms. The essence
of this argument is similar to the following observation
which has been made about the value of the grievance
procedure in the American system of industrial relations:
" . . . . whether or not organised workers are successful in
pursuing specific actions through the grievance procedure,
it is the availability of that procedure and the sharing of
decision making authority with management which it
represents that reflects the impact of unionism on
personnel management" [4]. This sort of argument that
the safety representative/committee provisions are
important for what they symbolise and hence as an end in
themselves (i.e. the industrial democracy dimension), can
be taken a stage further by considering their potential
contribution to improved workplace health and safety.
This latter argument is, of course, hardly unique to us and
indeed was mentioned in the paper by Stuttard. However,
it was only referred to there in very general terms whereas
here we develop the argument in considerably more detail
by demonstrating the all-important fact that union
members are disproportionately employed in industries
with above-average accident rates.
Industrial Relations and Health and Safety
Considerations: A Conflict?
The importance of illustrating this quite specific
proposition can readily be appreciated by noting that the
most controversial aspect of the safety representative
regulations was the Employment Protection Act's
substitution of the original provision (of the Health and
Safety at Work Act) for employee appointed safety
representatives with the stipulation that representatives be
union appointed. This change predictably led to
considerable criticism by the Conservative opposition in
Parliament and by employer organisations such as the
CBI. The essence of this criticism was that industrial
relations considerations (namely the Employment
Protection Act's explicit intention to foster collective
bargaining) had conflicted with, but triumphed over health
and safety considerations. The alleged adverse
consequences of this decision have been outlined in the
following terms:
. . . . apathy towards safety is likely to be greatest in
just those establishments which are not unionised, but
the Employment Protection Act appears to do little to
foster the growth of trade unions in workplaces where
there is not already a substantial interest in collective
bargaining. It may be permissible to tolerate apathy in
industrial relations, but it is arguable that lack of union
representation ought not to cut off employees from
consultation in respect of safety, particularly if, as may
possibly be the case, unsafe working conditions are
prevalent in estalishments which are not unionised. It
would be most unfortunate if the philosophy of
satisfactory industrial relations were allowed to conflict
with the philosophy of safety at the workplace [5].
In contrast to the above contention, which suggests that
workplace health and safety problems may be
disproportionately concentrated in the non-union sector,
we seek to demonstrate that it is union members that
actually face a disproportionate amount of such problems,
at least in the sense of being very largely employed in the
high accident rate industries [6]; the demonstration of this
proposition means that the decision to restrict safety
representatives to being union appointed can be seen to
have a health and safety, as well as an industrial relations,
basis.
Employee Relations 3,1 1981 | 23
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