Health and safety "might not grab the headlines ... but that work is vital". Opening the weekend's virtual conference for UNISON's water, environment and transport service group (WET),
The virus has had a "devastating impact", she noted. It has been like "nothing we've experienced before, and safety has had to be paramount".
But
"Thanks for all that's been delivered since our last conference" in
And health and safety dominated conference business.
During COVID-19, the union's health and safety reps have been the first point of contact for employees to ensure their employer has made things COVID secure.
Pointing out that some employers in the industry initially held rather lax views about the government instruction to work from home wherever possible, he continued by noting that, once the argument was won, it was then a challenge to "ensure members were remotely working from home in a safe manner with adequate equipment provided and funded by employers".
Delegates agreed with
Executive vice-chair
Moving a motion for the
Delegates supported the call for the executive to work with UNISON's health and safety unit to "evaluate the scale of the problem and develop a guide for branches to use to evaluate the potential of recompense for members affected as well as reducing the necessity of shift working".
Similarly, conference backed another motion from the
Ms I Davies also highlighted the issue of fatigue in the water industry as a result of "staffing levels being butchered to the bone". She noted that the industry is male dominated and a "bit of a macho culture" means that problems are going unreported.
The climate emergency was also high on the agenda, with
"We are not alone in UNISON in wanting a just transition to a net zero economy," stressed Ms R Davies, but "WET workers in UNISON will be concerned about the impact necessary changes will have on them, their families, and communities. They will rightly want to have a significant say in how the
Equalities issues raised
Equalities issues were also on the agenda.
His employer had announced that, in future, all staff would permanently work from home. After UNISON intervened, "a compromise was reached", but he said that there needs to be a campaign on employers to "do the right thing" - not least when employers are refusing to recognise the additional costs to employees of working from home.
"The computers have to be powered. Lights have to be on and, in the long, cold winter, heating on. At the same time, the employers' offices were shut down."
Utility bills for companies dropped, while the same bills rose for the workforce.
Conference called on the executive to research the scale of the problem across branches and develop negotiating advice on the issue.
At present, because of the pay gap, "women in the
For the national Black members' committee,
Previously, when working from home has been requested as a reasonable adjustment, it has often been refused by employers, yet COVID-19 has shown that it can mean a "reduction in sickness absence among disabled workers".
She told delegates that "UNISON has a number of tools that WET branches and stewards can use in arguing for homeworking as a reasonable adjustment, including out homeworking guide and our two new stewards' guides to representing disabled and Deaf workers".
For the LGBT+ national committee,
"Galop, the LGBT+ anti-violence charity, found an escalation in the number of reports they received about hate crime and hate speech." Some was from people blaming the LGBT+ community for the pandemic and "often included references to the Aids epidemic and COVID-19 as a 'punishment from God'."
He called on the executive to "seek to ensure that workforce health and wellbeing is on the bargaining agenda with all WET employers" and to "call on employers to acknowledge the importance of specialist support services, such as LGBT+ support services, and publicise them to staff, where they exist".
And
Although we are unable to hold our
.
(C) 2021 M2 COMMUNICATIONS, source