If you work in waste and recycling in the UK, you might not be reassured to hear it has a work fatality rate nine times the national average. And you might be even more alarmed when you hear some privatisation-happy local authorities are clueless when it comes to their legal responsibility to keep you safe.
The Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the UK government’s workplace health and safety watchdog, says it has “identified that a contributing factor may be that some local authorities are unclear what their legal duties are and mistakenly believe that putting a service out to contract relieves them of all health and safety responsibilities.”
HSE says it hopes new online guidance will help local authorities understand the importance of a sensible approach to health and safety when it comes to procuring and managing waste and recycling services, in a bid to help reduce death and injury. According to HSE figures, the recycling industry has nine times more fatalities than the national average and four times as many workers suffer injuries.
HSE chair Judith Hackitt said: “The guidance will help local authorities understand the full extent of their role when managing waste and recycling contractors. HSE wants to see occupational health and safety become an integral but common sense part of the specification, procurement and management of waste and recycling contracts.”
HSE research has also found workers in the waste and recycling sector have higher sickness rates.
What’s union, green and read all over?
The National Labor College (NLC) and the AFL-CIO’s Center for Green Jobs have launched a monthly online Green Labor Journal to outline issues of sustainability, energy use and climate change from a union perspective.
It says the journal will showcase union green initiatives and provide up-to-date information on new developments in green policy, technology and work processes.
A report in the AFL-CIO’s blog says the journal will emphasise that green jobs must pay decent wages and benefits so workers can sustain themselves and their families. All green policy initiatives also must include fair labour standards.
The online journal also will highlight the important role of unions in environmental debates.
Issue 1 includes details of NLC’s Green Workplace Representative Certificate Program. It says: “Based upon the model of the British Trade Union Congress’s (TUC) Union Green Representative program, the NLC curriculum will provide working people with a practical guide for conducting a workplace audit, organizing a ‘greening committee’ in every workplace, and working with management to make the positive changes necessary to achieve sustainability.”
TUC publishes a regular online Green Workplaces News.
Writing in the first issue of the Green Labor Journal, NLC’s Tom Kriger notes: “Research shows that sustainable workplaces are more productive workplaces. Thus a further goal of this program is to build cooperative labor-management partnerships so workplaces become safer and more productive, enhance the competitiveness of American firms in the global economy, and contribute to the health of the planet.
“Based in part upon the role of the health and safety committees that the labor movement pioneered in many workplaces, a workplace “greening committee” would provide the appropriate forum for discussing the results of workplace audits and negotiating steps to address issues identified in the audits.”