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In April, the month of International Workers Memorial Day and as previously reported by this website, CWU Re-Design Conference passed the Executive's rules changes on the abolition of the Union's Health & Safety Dept, the national H&S Officer's post and also the status of Health & Safety within the CWU.
Instead H&S is now only an advisory role, under the responsibility of the Union's two Executives of the Postal and T&FS constituencies. This sends the completely wrong message to employers and may will set in motion further attacks on USRs by employers, such as EE where the T&FS has failed to even negotiate a USR agreement with the company. The immediate response by the Postal Executive following the passing of the rule change, was to contact all those USRs, ASRs, and Chairs of Regional H&S Committees present at Conference; and invite them to a meeting to discuss the way forward in implementing the changes as a result of the abolition of both the H&S national post and the H&S Dept. Subsequently, the Postal Executive have issued two Letters To Branches (LTB) on the issue of the Postal Executive's intentions to work with ASRs and Regional H&S Committees to ensure H&S is given the priority it deserves within the Executive, and the representation on the issues concerned that will take place with Royal Mail Group. The question now is, what has the T&FS Executive done since the passing of that Conference motion, regarding the Health and Safety at work of the CWU members it represents? Furthermore, where is the support for T&FS Union Safety Reps who have on more than one occasion saved members lives and prevented workplace deaths?
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Ignoring the legal framework of the Safety Reps and Safety Committees Regulations 1978 which placed the Union's safety Reps in the position of having legal rights to carry out their duties and to work with line management and involving the T&FS Executive in ensuring issues raised by URS were actioned both locally and nationally; the CWU decided that Health & Safety was no longer a role that stands independent of any facility time granted by the employer, and therefore an important role that benefits the health, safety, and wellbeing of the Union's membership.