Health and Safety at UK Organisations - Research Paper Example

Health and Safety at UK Organisations __________ _______________ Grade _________ d: May 24, 2007-05-24 Health and safety organisations are characterised by providing occupational health safety, advice and safety training (2007a) irrespective of gender, class or age group. The Act ‘Health and Safety at work’ (HASAWA) is generally for the public as well as for UK organisations, regardless of the fact that one is employed, unemployed or belong to any profession. Therefore it is the onus on the shoulders of every individual or organisation to follow the act. (2007b) According to the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (1995) the 21st century is an era of increasingly global competition, and what will distinguish one organisation from another in terms of continuing success is optimising the people contribution in the field of effective management of the health and welfare of all employees. (CIPD, 1995, p. 4) EU Occupational Safety Safety is determined through work environment and policies towards which training, culture management programmes, individualised reward management systems and other range of employee involvement mechanisms, all operate not only towards achieving enhanced employee contribution, but the health concerns behind those contributions. The major reason behind the emergence of Occupational Health Safety (OHS) embedded in organisational infrastructure is the growing and alarming trend in work-related illness and injury, and the related costs to organisations and governments. Research suggests that every year the European nation, particularly UK is followed by a swift ratio of accidents or diseases at work according to which 10 million of the 150 million workers are affected each year. This result in the increment of direct-compensation costs estimated at 20 billion pounds per year (Agius, 2001). Work-related injuries and ill health cost the UK some between £3.5 billion and £7.3 billion annually i.e., equivalent to between 4 per cent and 8 per cent of all UK companies’. Health and Safety at Work – History The Industrial Revolution in Britain saw many consequences for ordinary working people in terms of their livelihood, family relationships and gender divisions in and outside work of which the major factor was ill health, injuries and deaths. The concern about health issues in work started in this period of Britain which ranged from 1740 to the 1850s, in which the need was felt for policies and legislation of Workers Act as workers no longer owned the tools of their trade. Employers while felt the need for housing, therefore industrial towns emerged with housing for workers which were located around the factories and mills. A new concept of ‘traditional apprenticeship’ emerged according to which employers felt the need for their labour of providing food, clothing and shelter. On one hand employers provide facilities while on the other, they make the conditions worst for their labour by restricting the conditions of and hours of work for the working population, marked by overwork, malnutrition and subsequent illness. Disease and death were the added ingredients to that environment where the pursuit of profits over rode concerns for health. Occupational health during the nineteenth century was largely linked with parliamentary reforms and the Public Health Movement in which the reforms spearheaded by the likes of Chadwick, Peel, Shaftesbury and Southwood-Smith. These personalities contributed to creating the platform for further developments in the twentieth century. (Wilkinson, 2001, p. 30) After several years of failure of implementing factories Act and Mines Act the British Government came up with HASAWA. HASAWA initiated with the laissez-faire experiment in the nineteenth century, which was followed by a raft of regulation to create and protect the health and safety of UK workers. The experiment did not remain successful; regulations mushroomed and multiplied, driven forward by the increasing power of trade unions and sympathetic governments. However, by the 1970s considerable reform to the complicated array of workplace regulation was underway. These were the conditions which gave rise to the foundation of the ‘Robens Committee review of safety at work’ (Robens, 1972). This foundation later culminated in the 1974 Health and Safety at Work Act (HASAWA). This Act not only changed the approach to industrial safety in the UK but its influence extended to other European countries, particularly Australia. The committee was aimed at replacing the inherited mass of detailed and prescriptive regulation with a more rational, broad, goal-based regulatory framework (Robens 1972). Therefore the Robens Committee proposed a single comprehensive unifying and enabling piece of legislation that would lay out the basic duties of both the employer and the employee. The proposal contained ‘safety’ as a part of the ‘self-regulation’ legislation rather than prohibitory, external regulatory control (Robens, 1972). Nonetheless, the HASAWA (1974) was adopted and to date, it has provided the basic framework for the regulation of OHS in the UK and a model for many other jurisdictions. However, ‘real participation’ was not secured via the HASAWA, but through a later legislative victory which was won by the trade unions following a long campaign. In this context the role played by the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (SRSC) Regulations (1977) was very vital as they were ahead to provide a strong platform for UK trade unions to raise voice for their rights. (Boyd, 2003, p. 15) The importance of meaningful employee participation in workplace safety is well illustrated by the fact that the relative strength of capital (employers) and labour (trade unions) correlates with the apparent initial success of the Act in reducing workplace accidents and injuries during the late 1970s, while the subsequent rise in these statistics during the first half of the 1980s correlates with the ascendance of Thatcherite union-bashing policies (Nichols, 1997, p. 14). Trade Unions contribution Trade Union Congress (TUC) in 1924 was the first move of ‘labour’s voice’ that publicly asserted the concern for workers’ health by publications. Political parties took advantage of labours’ concern while capitalism stated clearly that workers should take control of the work environment and also challenged the value of joint negotiating committees where workers had no real power. Publication had no effect on labours’ rights and until 1950s there was little work undertaken in formulating a strategy for prevention. In other words labours’ concern was ignored. In fact in 1934, a retired factory inspectorate “Thomas Legge” refused to ratify the Geneva White Lead Convention, because of asbestosis and remarked: “As long as I am looking back in the light of present knowledge, I am not finding any opportunities for discovery and prevention”. (Clutterbuck, 1980). Many cases of cadmium poisoning had been reported, but it was not to be a recognized occupational disease until 1953 when Beta-naphthylanine was also known as long ago as 1895 to cause bladder cancer, but the Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI) continued to produce it. They were eventually fined £20,000 but even 85 years later, it is recognized that all people who were exposed have not been contacted and checked. Occupational Health Safety emerged in 1940s when interest came from the Labour Party to develop a co-ordinated health service in organisations. However, this was consistently blocked by the government. This occurred despite setting up of an Industrial Health Research Board directed by the Medical Research Council (MRC) which established units on pneumoconiosis (1945), toxicology (1947) and pollution (1955), and at a number of universities. This at least united the labour on a single platform and they were successful to form a group. By 1954, the Government realised the increasing death toll rate due to accidents therefore a motion was forwarded urging the government to mobilize strategies towards accident prevention, however it would have been included at that time the setting up of committees in industrial as well as non-industrial forums. The resolution was withdrawn when the General Council argued that it might reduce the employers’ liability for accidents, thus creating a smokescreen without any intention of carrying out the necessary work. Rights for safety representatives were won under the Mines and Quarries Act in 1954, however, it was not until 1961 that further regulations under the Factory Act were issued. These circumstances gave rise to amendments in existing legislation but to a limited extent in which employer gained strength, thereby establishing minimum standards for institutions recognised as traditional factories in which there were traditional concerns of safety like cooling, melting, lighting, heating, ventilation, cleaning, guarding and fire procedures. Critics believe that it was all the efforts of Union that enabled the labour to raise their voices as there is little evidence to indicate that health and safety legislation was a result of union pressure. Later the evidence was provided on workers behalf through companies, industrial associations, the TUC and CBI to the Robens Committee in 1970. (Wilkinson, 2001, p. 44) Robens’ hard work, recommendations and suggestions laid down the foundation of the new Health and Safety at Work (HASAWA), Act of 1974. Unfortunately, Robens saw no need for an occupational health service, and blamed employers for their own misfortune in the workplace; however one can perceive this as diplomatic action. On the other end, Nichols’ (1990) after analysing industrial accident statistics of the 1980s indicated that trade union training should go on to induce a positive contribution to health and safety movement at work. Indeed, Walters and Gourlay (1990) found that union contribution main arrival purpose was to induce a positive relationship between central trade union organisation and effective representation and that on a legislation basis. (Walters, 1990). The association between union’s involvement and response is strong to appoint to joint consultative committees and health and safety committees where unions appointed employee representatives to joint consultative committees they were much more likely to appoint employee representatives to health and safety committees. This association strengthened during the 1990s which after realising that in 82 per cent of unionized workplaces where unions appointed employee representatives to a joint consultative committee in 1998, they also appointed employee representatives to a health and safety committee. Eighty-nine per cent of those who did not appoint to a joint consultative committee did not appoint to a health and safety committee either. This suggests that either measure might act as an indicator of general union influence in the joint regulation of the workplace. On both measures the decline in the 1990s appears to have been substantial. (Bryson et al, 2000, p. 159) Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 HSW Act 1974 acts as a legislation which includes all the OHS concerns in the UK. (2007c) From 1979 in the UK, the new Conservative government embarked upon the wholesale deregulation and the privatisation and liberalisation of industry. In October 1992, the UK government launched the Deregulation Task Force, which conducted a review of an initial 400 pieces of regulation. According to the Health and Safety Commission (HSC) annual report, 1997/98 where it is noted that fifty-three sets of regulations and Acts had been removed as part of the ongoing programme of legislative reform. These agreements may constitute a pragmatic response by a growing proportion of the UK workforce who perceive long working hours as part of the price that has to be paid for relative security. It is only recently that international governments and regulatory agencies have begun to legislate for the growing population of temporary, part-time, home and agency workers, despite the growing body of evidence that suggests the negative impact on worker health and safety in the deregulated, restructured labour market. The problems in OHS legislation are not just about coverage of different employment groupings, but also of enforcement activity. Quinlan (1999) argues that while OHS laws are viable on all workers and organisations, but still little compliance activity has been directed to smaller workplaces, subcontractors or more casualised forms of employment. (Quinlan, 1999) Legislation Implementation Health and Safety implementation requires high levels of supervision, while commitment, on the other hand, would produce innovation, creativity and superior outcomes. The government’s motives for the various ‘culture reform’ documents become a little clearer - high levels of supervision require large resources, but again employers have found it extremely difficult to secure employee commitment to given business objectives the government is experiencing similar obstacles in securing employers’ commitment to health and safety. (Boyd, 2003, p. 41) Despite sending many formal notices by the UK Inspectors employers’ are reluctant to implement legislation voluntarily, and, by implication, is the result of the dubious efficacy of self-regulation. The fewer visits by inspectors in organisations result in the rise in formal enforcement notices by 44 per cent, representing a rate of 5 per 1,000 premises. This trend is mirrored in statistics covering all sectors (HSE, 2000). The difference is in the form of some changes to labour markets that have had positive effects on injury and illness rates, such as the shift in employment away from traditionally hazardous industries, there is limited knowledge regarding the patterns of injury and illness in the growing service industries, where the concentration of temporary and other contingent workers (for example, self-employed, home workers) is particularly high. (Boyd, 2003, p. 23) OHS is actually being the victim of political infrastructure has been underlined by the correlation between the relative strength and ability of capital and labour in the employment relationship, and the UK industry’s safety performance in the 1970s and early 1980s. In order to adopt measures to confront with the ‘Health and safety’ issues in organisations, it is important to consider the types of measures adopted to achieve best policy outcomes. These options are specification, performance, and systems based standards. A specification standard allows the employer to be aware of the precise measures required to take and which requires little interpretation on the employer’s part. Such standards are followed by situations and utilised by certain circumstances which are of specific types of safeguarding methods. In contrast, a performance standard is favourable to the employer as it specifies the outcome of the OHS improvement but which leaves the concrete measures to achieve this end open for the employer to adapt to varying local circumstances. (Gunningham & Johnstone, 1999, p. 23) According to the UK Health Department (April 1999) “The health and well-being of employees is a key factor in the success of any business or organisation. Recognising the value of a healthy workplace will ensure that staff are ‘healthier, happier and here’, therefore placing these issues at the centre of an organisation’s concerns will help ensure its continuing effectiveness”. (HWI, April 1999) The expectations of an employer and employee, both are demanding on the part of OHS regarding health and safety management under a range of policies, principles and practices may be fuelled by the rhetoric of its proponents, the economic logic for ‘good’ OHS practice along with the expressed policy intentions of policymakers. In simple terms, these emphases occupy polar ends of the HRM spectrum, with ‘resource to be invested in’ or ‘soft HRM’ at one end and ‘cost to be minimised’ or ‘hard HRM’ at the other. Apart from the legislation, activity level is usually regarded as a dimension which is important for the integration of people in the larger society, family life and cultural participation. In the context of stress research, activity level may also be seen as part of the worker’s resources necessary to rely on in order to deal effectively with health and safety issues at the workplace. The lack or a missing part of a social network and isolation demonstrates an increase in physiological predisposition to ill health. A study by Knox et al. (1985) demonstrated that young men in Sweden aged 28 years working in non-learning occupations were more likely to have high levels of plasma adrenaline at rest and high systolic blood pressure at rest. This was the case regardless of the evidence of a job classified as boring. Conversely, it must also be observed that individual motivations to overwork can be induced and reinforced by alienating social structures, invariably through manipulated job settings, the hierarchical division of labour and contingent cultural patterns. (Wilkinson, 2001, p. 23) Future of Workplace Safety in Organisations It seems despite the ignorance of safety in organisations, the European Commission has developed proposals to action a health promotion programme, and having being taken through the European Parliament and Commission, was adopted on 16th February 1996. A five year programme costing ECU 35 million was established which as a result of developments in public health policy, members of the European Network for Workplace Health Promotion at a network meeting held in November 1997, founded the Luxembourg Declaration on Workplace Health Promotion in the European Union. (Wilkinson, 2001, p. 168) The recent activity in workplace safety arises from two factors. Firstly, the Framework Directive on Safety and Health (Council Directive 89/391/EC) which provided a platform to alter traditional occupational health practice and legislation and secondly, advancing the view that the workplace be regarded as a public health setting. These ideas are not new, however, the Network has been involved in raising the profile of health improvement activity in the work environment across Europe in a much more concerted and collaborative way than their colleagues in the US for example. (Wilkinson, 2001, p. 168) RONIN Research Services in 1997 when surveyed a number of companies in Britain, found that out of 1043 people they contacted, over half had received flame mails usually sent by managers. Men were regarded as the main perpetrators and there were more women on the receiving end of offensive mail. This led to stress, loss of confidence, loss of productivity and an avoidance of face to face communication with colleagues (IRS, 1997). Today organisations like Royal Mail have become a notion of critics for many British, as public consider the junk mails being delivered to their doorsteps, useless and wastage of paper hazardous for the environment and public health and safety. (2007d) To date, health promotion practice in the workplace has lacked rigour, with many activities taking place in isolation. Now in the presence of such activities it is difficult to be a part of a co-ordinated strategy with an integrated approach to problem analysis, programme planning, implementation and evaluation procedures (Springett and Dugdill, 1995). Bergman (1999) while critically analysing the issue of health and safety at workplace suggests that the HASAWA is implemented only to a particular extent in each organisation, the situation is worst in Railroad organisations in which each year HSE reports on more than 20,000 injuries and 250 deaths and this is because the British Government never implements policies according to legislations. (Bergman, 1999) The corporate safety program already in place on the job site, the labour-management safety committee represents a significant addition in the provisions which are followed up till now. The labour management safety committee, first of all, appealed to the labour supervisors and architects’ professional ways of thought and corresponding administrative needs. Labour management cooperation is a major corollary of the safety movement’s professional ideology ‘Safety Management’ was originally developed by a group of construction industry safety professionals, who, like their colleagues in the professional safety movement, also stressed the need to involve workers in job site safety programs by way of increased labour-management cooperation. (Boyd, 2003, p. 65) Indeed, the need to involve workers was especially apparent to the architects of construction industry safety professionals, since their industry has been slow to develop in this regard. Today, the concern of health at workplace is getting important in wider aspects like across the international airline industry, there is what can only be described as a complete void of regulations relating to basic employee health and safety issues such as rest breaks, hygiene, air quality, ergonomics and rest facilities for employees. While the provision requires European member states to set constraints on flight and duty times, it does not regulate the airlines’ operating practices or specify recommended limits, so conditions vary from country to country even Joint Aviation Requirements (JARs) provide only ‘recommended’ levels for air quality pollutants such as carbon dioxide and ozone. The dilemma with airline safety is that unlike most other workplaces, the aircraft cabin is not routinely subject to external inspections, meaning that it is primarily left in the hands of individual airlines to ensure these ‘recommended’ standards are maintained on flights. (Boyd, 2003, p. 70) From March 2000 to April 2001, the UK flights carried about 1.1 million passengers (2007e) and how amazing is the fact that while there is a range of economic and technical safety aspects in current European aviation legislation, there is currently no legislation related specifically to passenger health. The change planned to implement within the policies with the cooperation of European Commission consultation document published in January 2000 on air passenger rights includes a section on conditions in the aircraft cabin. Another channel preparing for change is the UK public inquiry into air travel and health (May 2000), which made a total of forty-seven recommendations covering passenger and air crew health (House of Lords Select Committee 2000). UK is much concerned about workplace safety in organisations than perceived and this is evident from the UK inquiry, hosted by a representative from the Joint Aviation Authorities (JAA) who agreed that a body should be established that focuses on health issues on aircraft. UK cabin crews tries their level best to fulfil at least physical pieces of safety equipment, it appears that on an international scale there is little in the way of interventions that ensure their comfort and well-being in the workplace and factors that relate directly to flight attendants’ ability to perform at an optimum level during emergency situations. It is also clear that crash survivability is the singular concern of the aviation regulatory bodies. (CAA, 1999). It is important to categorise that factors that comes under air aviation safety for example, the observed apathy of the aviation bodies suggests that factors such as poor air quality, shift work, manual handling and workloads are not recognised as potential health and safety risks. European nations are characterised by the problem of charter airlines using one country as an operational base while using aircraft registered in a different country. In situations where the airplane gets out of control, the national aviation authority of the country from which the aircraft operates has no responsibility for the safety standards of the aircraft, along with the loopholes that allow UK tour operators, flight bookers and ‘seat only’ companies to use non-EU ‘flag of convenience’ air. British Airways is, without doubt, a key trend-setter in the international airline industry where ‘best practice’ will often be bench-marked against BA’s espoused policies and practices. (Boyd, 2003, p. 73) British Airways have developed in airline employment relations that are crystallised in the strike by British Airways’ cabin crews in July 1997, while the crux of the dispute was over pay cuts and extended working hours, the related OHS implications of longer working hours on cabin crew health and safety were of considerable concern to union officials. BA’s handling of the cabin crew dispute demonstrated the airline’s readiness to abandon any people-centred HRM (and OHS) policy when it comes down to profit and survival. In the UK, future regarding ‘safety at workplace’ is bright and hopeful as a new department responsible for ‘aviation health’ is to be set up by ministers to investigate and regulate the industry amidst concerns over a variety of health and safety concerns related to flying. (Boyd, 2003, p. 77) Following the Select Committee’s inquiry (2000), it is hoped that some of the recommendations will appear in the proposed White Paper on Air Travel and Health. The basis of these recommendations is found in an examination of the range of OHS risks present in the aircraft cabin. Just as flight attendants (when out of UK air space) are excluded from the HASAWA (1974), they are also excluded from the EU Noise at Work Regulations (1994). The health effects of low-frequency vibration and noise from the engines in airborne aircraft have not been extensively researched to date, but still research suggests that occupational noise is linked to deafness in infants, while low-frequency vibration is implicated in miscarriage and birth defects. For example, Scandinavian and Canadian studies (Lalande, 1986) link a threefold increase in infant hearing loss to the exposure to occupational noise (as low as 90dB) during pregnancy, while Flournoy (1990) reports that occupational exposure to low-frequency vibration increases the risk of miscarriages and birth defects. (Boyd, 2003, p. 89) The issue of Aircraft health risks has been severely critiqued that the health risks in aircraft, the aircraft cabin can be likened to a chamber of horrors, where a range of insidious risks are present yet their existence is continually denied and perhaps even concealed by airlines. While health safety concerns have finally hit the headlines and public attention and pressure has now forced UK airlines to acknowledge the risk, other risks such as organophosphates are likely to linger in some dark corner for a while longer. References 2007a – Accessed on May 22, 2007 from 2007b – Accessed on May 22, 2007 from 2007c – Accessed on May 22, 2007 from < http://www.hse.gov.uk/legislation/hswa.htm> 2007d, Aug 29, 2006 Accessed on May 22, 2007 from < http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5294708.stm> 2007e, Accessed on May 22, 2007 from < www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/aviation/hci/db/disruptivebehaviouronboarduk2955> Agius (2001) “Health, Environment and Work”, http://www.agius.com. Air Transport World, May 1997 Bergman David, (Oct 25, 1999) “Tighten Up Our Health and Safety Law” In: New Statesman. Volume: 128. Issue: 4459. Publication Date: p. 21 Boyd Carol, (2003) Human Resource Management and Occupational Health and Safety: Routledge: New York. Bryson Alex, Forth John & Millward Neil, (2000) All Change at Work? British Employment Relations 1980-1998, Portrayed by the Workplace Industrial Relations Survey Series: Routledge: London. 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