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In IWMD 2024 Week, Is The CWU About To Ditch Health & Safety As A Key Trade Union Issue
Some 6 years after the original announcement by CWU’s General Secretary that the Union will be Re-Designed in order to downsize and reduce the Union's financial burden, along with job cuts, departments amalgamated or closed down altogether; the threat to the destruction of the CWU National Health, Safety, and Environment Department and it’s National Officer’s post has now come to fruition. This month's rules revision Conference, could see the total abolition of CWU's health and safety structures, including the department and an elected national officer. Taking place as it does leading up to the International Worker's Memorial Day 2024, it is with appalling irony that one the TUC affiliated Trade Unions is about to closedown its 29 year old H&S Dept and dismiss the post of a national H&S Officer "as totally unnecessary in order for the union to deal with health and safety." Instead, the proposals to restructure H&S will place it in a 'call centre' called 'central services', with no one person responsible for providing H&S guidance and support. There will be no elected posts and ALL H&S Agreements in the future will have to be negotiated by the industrial executives despite there being no specialists with H&S knowledge on either exec.!
The final proposals were discussed with the Health & Safety community within the Regions, who noticed there being no change in the original aim of abolishing both the H&S National post and the H&SE Dept completely. Despite this, policy documents presented from CWU HQ for discussion and decision making at the Union’s Conference this month; lack actual detail as to how the policy on the CWU’s Health & Safety future structure and campaigning responsibility will finally look. It appears that CWU USRs and Area Safety reps, are being asked to simply agree the non-detailed proposals and trust that CWU HQ will address the concerns of the CWU H&S community when they implement their version of Re-Design. We await to see the two reports that were promised before Conference into how each Exec will implement the H&S changes. Unionsafety has covered in detail, the history of the Abolition of Health & Safety as a priority within the CWU and the facilities it will provide in order to ensure it maintains its standing amongst the membership and the wider trade union movement, developed over 29 years by the current National Officer, Dave Joyce and the CWU Health, Safety & Environment Department he developed. Below is a list of the major news articles covering what is now the final nails in the coffin of the CWU’s Health & Safety Department and its highly respected role within the TUC, the wider H&S community, the HSE; and even within the political arena concerned with Health & Safety. CWU Says Goodbye To National H&S Officer And Health & Safety Campaigning!
This list is not exhaustive and will be updated as additional news items are published on this website.
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Despite a huge campaign across the CWU’s health & safety community, and beyond, since 2018 including various promises from the GS of the Union; the SOS Campaign document which was originally received with support from CWU HQ proposing a re-design of the Union’s Health & Safety structures, has been completely ignored.
