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Employee representation and occupational health and safety in Britain: 1974–1994
09504230(95)00021-6
J. Loss Prev. Process Ind. Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 307-312, 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 095&4230/95 $10.00 + 0.00
Employee representation and occupational health and safety in Britain: 1974-1994 David Walters Centre for Industrial and Environmental University, London, UK
Safety and Health, South Bank
This paper presents a review of research carried out during the last ten years concerning the implementation, operation and effectiveness of measures on employee representation in health and safety at work in Britain. It outlines the development of employee representation in health and safety following the implementation of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977, both in terms of the numerical presence of safety representatives and joint safety committees and in terms of qualitative factors of representation and the influences on it. The paper describes some of the key factors that the research has identified concerning influences on employee representation, and especially focuses on the role of trade unions in promoting and supporting employee representation in health and safety. This analysis of the role of trade unions is seen as particularly significant at present, partly because of the overall decline in trade union power during the past 15 years and partly because of the unique position in Europe of the British legislative requirements on employee representation. The likelihood of changes in these requirements in the light of the provisions of the European Union Framework Directive 391189 makes questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the past and present British approach and its continued relevance particularly timely. Keywords:
employee
representation;
health and safety; participation
In 1974 in the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (HSWA 1974) was passed’. It contained the first statutory measures that allowed for the appointment of trade union workplace representatives to represent the health and safety interests of employees while at work. Indeed, they were the first statutory measures to provide for the widespread appointment of any form of trade union workplace representative in Britain. What was the significance of these measures? What has been their impact on the organization of preventive health and safety in Britain during the 20 years since the 1974 Act? And what is their relevance to the health and safety of employees in the 1990s and beyond? These are questions that have been addressed from several different perspectives in a series of studies undertaken over the last ten years. The main focus of these studies was the role of worker organization and trade union presence in fostering and supporting effective representation in health and safety at the workplace level. It is recognized that effective representation in health and safety does not necessarily mean effective organization of health and safety in terms of an overall improvement in the prevention of accidents and illhealth arising from work and an improvement of wellbeing and the quality of employees’ health status. In common with most literature on the extent and development of preventive services, a connection is
assumed to exist between the presence of preventive services and these measures of improvement. Recent publications have questioned this assumption. In particular, Scandinavian authors2T3 have described the limited effectiveness of preventive services in workplaces in their countries despite considerable investment of resources, and have suggested their peripheral role in the overall management of organizations as the reason for their limited effectiveness4. However, such findings do not conflict with the conclusions on the operation of worker representation in the review presented here. In addition, there are a few studies that indicate a relationship between trade union membership and’ health and safety performance in Britain and other countries: for example, Dedobbeleer’s comparison of the safety performance of unionized and non-unionized construction workers in the US and Grunberg’s work on health and safety in manufacturing in Britain and France’. In addition, Tombs, in his work on accident trends in the 198Os, has suggested a link between rising levels of accidents in British workplaces and the declining influence of trade unions during this time’. It is felt that the presentation of this overview based on several studies covering the whole period since the introduction of the HSWA 1974 is particularly timely given the strong likelihood of changes in the law in Britain regarding worker representation
307
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representation
and occupational
following the recent decisions of the European Court of Justices and the provisions of the CEC Framework Directive 89/3919, which are only partially implemented by the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (SRSC) Regulations 1977 lo. As pointed out in the following pages, the findings discussed here on the effectiveness of worker representation in health and safety at the workplace level suggest that mere extension of legislative provisions alone will be unlikely to lead to significant improvement in the effectiveness of representation in health and safety.
Research
1985-1995
Many of the issues that have been tested and further developed in the research undertaken in the last ten years were identified initially in a review of the available literature on employee involvement in health and safety in Britain up to the mid-1980s”. This review described the creation of the legislation on employee representation both at national and workplace level and paid some attention to the reasons behind its origins and the political context in which the legislation was developed. The political influence of the trade unions on the provisions for employee representation in workplace health and safety was emphasized and the corporatist political climate for the period was discussed. It was observed that the context in which the legislation operated was both politically and economically different from the one in which it was created, giving rise to problems for trade unions interested in effective employee representation in health and safety at work. The paper also outlined the state of knowledge on the practice of representation in health and safety at the workplace level, drawing upon the available British and American literature. It reviewed developments in knowledge concerning the numbers of safety representatives appointed and where they were most likely to be found, what they were entitled to do as trade union safety representatives and how the authors of other papers defined their activities in practice. It discussed the significance of the legislation for workplace trade union organization around health and safety issues and commented on the role of regulatory agencies and the vexed question of achieving compliance with this type of law. It drew some tentative conclusions about the relationship between trade union organization and the extent to which the legislative provisions actually operate in workplaces, arguing that effective representation is significantly influenced by trade union organization and that in practice the legislation was functioning as little more than guidance on good practice. However, it was recognized that these conclusions with regard to the achievement of employee representation in health and safety through the enactment, implementation and operation of the provisions of the HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977, while making valid arguments, were based on limited evidence. As a consequence, a field study of worker involvement in health and safety in
health
and safety:
0. Walters
selected workplaces in the printing industry was undertaken over a period of six months in 198S2. This study added evidence to the contentions of the previous paper, i.e. that industrial relations factors strongly influence the practice of joint regulation of health and safety. The paper on the printing industry case studies was also concerned with the processes involved in joint regulation. It found that trade union representatives were expressing a preference for collective bargaining routes for dealing with health and safety in the adverse economic climate of the mid-1980s and evidence of the relatively peripheral role of joint safety committees despite concentration on them in previous research literaturei3. The case studies suggested a relationship between the preference for a collective bargaining approach and the degree to which the function of safety representation was integrated into trade union workplace organization. Integration was observed as being greatest, albeit for different reasons, in smaller and larger firms, with most incidents of safety representatives behaving in an isolated manner occurring in medium-sized organizations. The other factor that was identified as strongly influencing safety representation was the extent to which representatives had received training. Because the study concentrated on joint regulation of health and safety only in the printing industry, which has its own special characteristics, the extent to which its findings could be extrapolated to other industries was uncertain. Around the same time, a limited study of the hotel and catering industry was undertaken14. Its findings on the relationship between workplace size, trade union organization and perceptions about the quality of health and safety in the organizations studied lend support from another industrial sector to the findings discussed in the printing industry survey, bearing in mind the qualification that, with regard to trade union recognition and workplace organization, the hotel and catering industry represents the opposite end of a spectrum compared with the printing industry. Although this survey generally supports the findings of the printing industry study, trade union workplace presence was so underdeveloped that meaningful comparison of trade union strategies could be undertaken only to a limited extent. For this reason, it was desirable to conduct a much more wide-reaching study and to try to examine in greater depth some of the factors perceived as influencing the effectiveness of trade union representation in health and safety. The opportunity to do this was presented in 1987 when a national study on the implementation and effectiveness of the SRSC Regulations 1977 was undertaken with the collaboration of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). As well as numerical information on implementation and operation, the study included a detailed analysis of the operation of the statutory provisions in selected workplaces. Since the publication of the report in 1990, the contents of
Employee
representation
and occupational
both this study and the previous study in the printing industry have become accepted as a fairly definitive description of implementation and operation of provisions for employee involvement in health and safety in Britain. The published reportI provided statistical details on the presence, activities and training of safety representatives and the existence, role and composition of safety committees, based on the results of a survey of 4761 workplaces undertaken with the cooperation of the HSE. It was the first published survey to show that implementation of the SRSC Regulations had come to a standstill by the late 1980s and, in some industrial sectors and in small and medium-sized workplaces, there was a decline in the numbers of representatives appointed, in comparison with the results of earlier surveys. It also showed declining levels of training for safety representatives and limited use of the functions of safety representatives that are identified by the regulations. These findings were confirmed by later surveys, both small and large scale. For example, the recent third Workplace Industrial Relations Survey16 points to a similar decline. The second part of the report is a detailed analysis of the operation of the regulations resulting from studies undertaken in four separate industries. It confirms and extends the findings of the printing industry work with regard to the relationship between industrial relations factors and the operation of statutory provisions for worker representation in health and safety. In addition to the strong association between workplace size, trade union activity and consequent worker representation on health and safety, some of its key findings include: the positive relationship between the presence of a strong, centralized workplace trade union organization and effective safety representatives the necessity for integration of effective safety representatives into the workplace organization of the trade unions the importance of information and particularly training for effective safety representatives the importance of consultation between the safety representatives and the constituencies they represent the overwhelming importance of management commitment to taking seriously both health and safety issues and employee participation
Themes in analysis of the British experience of worker representation in health and safety at the workplace The sequence of publications referred to above, of which the HSE report” is the culmination, offers an analysis of several issues surrounding worker representation in health and safety at the workplace level in Britain. The role of trade union organization and other factors that influence the effective operation of employee representation in health and safety at the
health and safety:
D. Walters
309
workplace level are the main focus of the research. Several key themes have emerged. The significance of the legislation on employee representation in Britain
The provisions of HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 on employee representation in health and safety were not the first measures to be enacted in Britain, as miners had been covered by such measures (albeit inadequately implemented) for many years. Nor was Britain the first to enact such measures, as they already existed in several European countries. Indeed, the Swedish provisions, which had been in force since 1949, were frequently referred to by trade union activists in their campaigns to achieve the implementation of statutory measures in Britain. However, the British provisions do have a number of rather unique characteristics that distinguish them and have significant implications for both their implementation and operation. To begin with, there is the political and economic context of the creation of legislation and the problems posed when implementation and operation actually take place in a changed context. HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 were both products of the political and administrative system that had operated in Britain since the end of the 1940s and which has been called ‘British corporatism’. In 1979, a Conservative government was elected with the stated intention of changing this approach, and since that time a succession of governments has pursued strategies greatly at odds with the former corporatism. The fundamentally altered political and economic climate is therefore an important factor that must be accounted for in assessment of the impact of the legislation and the functioning of its organizational prerequisites. The two pieces of legislation themselves are products of different strategies for achieving joint regulation of health and safety in the workplace. The HSWA 1974 Act is heavily influenced by the notions of consensus embodied in the report of the Robens Committee, on which it is based, while its requirements for regulations on worker involvement in health and safety are the pluralistic result of a Labour government acceding to the demands of the trade unions for legal rights for trade union representatives. This means that, in both cases, but particularly with regard to the regulations, a level of trade union legitimacy as well as trade union power was assumed with the introduction of these auxiliary legislative measures, in order that they might be properly implemented and operational. However, it is this very legitimacy and power that has been systematically challenged since shortly after the introduction of the regulations. The regulations specify that only ‘recognized trade unions’ may appoint safety representatives. While in the 1970s this may have been intended to mean those organizations that were recognized as being true trade unions, during the 1980s and 1990s in law it has come to mean those trade unions that are recognized by the employer for
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collective bargaining purposes. Since such recognition is entirely voluntary on the part of employers and since the HSE has a policy of non-intervention in industrial relations matters, there is no legal rule preventing employers from refusing to recognize a trade union or derecognizing one. The potential for this restrictive definition of who is legally entitled to appoint safety representatives to backfire on its intended beneficiaries is obvious. The impact of the legislative provisions on employee representation Implementation.
The findings of the field research show that the regulations have not resulted in complete coverage of all workplaces. Arrangements for joint consultation in health and safety in accordance with their requirements are found in larger workplaces where trade unions are present but to a much lesser extent in medium-sized and smaller workplaces. By the mid to late 1980s less than ten years after their introduction, the regulations were, numerically at least, having a declining effect15. More recent studies indicate that this decline is continuing. For example, in a sample of over 700 companies in East Anglia, most of which were large and medium-sized, only 40% had recognized a trade union for workplace health and safety purposes17. The degree to which the decline is exacerbated by the denial or withdrawal of recognition of trade unions by employers is not clear; however, it is certain to be one important influence. Although no comprehensive survey exists, available figures suggest that there has been a fourfold rise in the figures for derecognition for 1988-1992 when compared with figures for 1984-198818. The impact of such trends, when coupled with other trends such as reduction in the size and numbers of workplaces in industries where trade unions traditionally had a strong presence, is bound to contribute to the problem of implementation. Operation. In terms of the operation of the SRSC Regulations 1977, safety representatives and safety committees are found in larger workplaces with recognized trade unions. The research discusssed in this article has identified some of the determinants of effectiveness for employee representation in health and safety in these workplaces. It also points out that these are probably the workplaces that least need the intervention of legislative prescription to achieve the levels of worker representation in health and safety that they enjoy. Indeed, it raises a question about how many of these well-organized workplaces would have achieved some form of workplace trade union representation in health and safety without the regulations, given the trends in the growth of scope of trade union workplace representation prior to their introduction. Their function for the workplaces where trade union safety representatives were most in evidence was not to achieve their appointment nor to
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prescribe their functions. Rather, it was to act as a guide for employers and trade unions, indicating what trade union representatives might expect from managers in the way of provision for health and safety representation. At the same time, they provided a stimulus for the extensive development of trade union training in health and safety that took place around the period of their introduction. This analysis is supported by the findings of research on how the safety representatives and safety committees operate, which draws attention to the importance of industrial relations factors, power relations at the workplace and trade union workplace organization in determining the effectiveness of safety representatives and joint safety committees that have been overlooked by many other studies of joint regulation of health and safety. Those determinants of effectiveness that the research identifies which relate to the legitimacy, power and organization of trade unions at the workplace level are, of course, the ones that are most likely to have been diminished by the broader political and economic strategies that successive governments have pursued since the introduction of the regulations. Other important influences on joint regulation of health and safety that the research points out are the role that management plays within enterprises and the role of the regulatory authorities. From the research evidence discussed, it seems unlikely that either of these influences would contribute effectively to a reversal of the trends identified. Declining levels of trade union recognition, growth of smaller enterprises and changes in the management of human resources unlikely to favour representation of employees in health and safety were already apparent in 1987, when the field work for the HSE report was undertaken. Subsequent industrial relations surveys by other researchers, notably Millward’s commentaryrg on the most recent Workplace Industrial Relations SurveyI have confirmed this, and, at the same time, have noted the absence of any alternative form of sustainable employee organization or representation emerging in British enterprises. The latter observation concerning the absence of sustainable alternatives to trade union organization is particularly important with regard to the possible consequences of extending legislative provisions to cover all employees, in line with what is generally agreed to be a more accurate interpretation of the provisions of the CEC Framework Directive than the one in the legislation introduced to implement the directive in Britain to date2”. The experience of the implementation of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (Offshore) Regulations 1990 is instructive. Introduced as a consequence of the Piper Alpha disaster, in an industry where trade unions were not recognized, these regulations allow for the election of non-trade union safety representatives. Their operation was recently reviewed by Spaven and Wright21, but the evidence they present on the effectiveness of the offshore regulations is limited and their findings have
Employee
representation
and occupational
been seriously questioned**. The study describes a situation with many features that are peculiar to the oil industry of the UK continental shelf, and, as such, fails to provide convincing evidence to suggest that the wider application of similar measures would be likely to be effective without the involvement of sustainable institutions of worker representation. Other studies of the operation of non-union safety representatives are rare and also fail to show any significant features to encourage the idea that more widespread application of non-union employee representation in health and safety could be successful without extensive additional support23. The space created by the decline of trade union legitimacy and power might have been filled by a more aggressive or pro-active approach to the enforcement of the regulations by the HSE and local authorities and the regulations might have assumed a more prescriptive role as a result. However, the HSE research found no evidence of the enforcing authorities treating the SRSC Regulations as anything other than the auxiliary legislation it was originally intended to be. The same would apply to the effectiveness of nonunion representation. It is likely that a diminished role for trade unions in supporting safety representation would need to be compensated for by increased support from other institutions such as management and the regulatory authorities. There is no evidence to date to suggest that this support is forthcoming except in isolated and unrepresentative cases.
Conclusions The studies on employee representation in workplace health and safety in the United Kingdom discussed here confirm a number of points about the implementation and operation of provisions on employee representation and the factors that influence them. Britain’s unique system of statutory rights for recognized trade unions to appoint safety representatives and the functions given to them was introduced by the HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 in October 1978. Since that time, implementation of the provisions enjoyed a brief period of development until the mid-1980s, since which time trends of implementation have slowed and in some cases reversed. The decline in implementation can be attributed to the changes in the nature of employment and in the role of trade unions, as the factors identified as most influential in promoting implementation are workplace size, sector and trade union organization. The extent of trade union organization and its commitment to health and safety were also shown to be influential in the operation of the provisions within organizations. Also critical to operation was support from management. The regulatory authorities, despite their potential for involvement, continue to treat the provisions as auxiliary legislation, leaving the achievement of their operation largely to their beneficiaries. The regulations work best in large wellorganized workplaces and are least implemented and
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operated in small workplaces. Such findings beg questions about the overall value of the statutory measures, since it is large and well-organized workplaces which are most likely to have had provisions for employee representation without the regulations. The main question that the research raises concerns the continued relevance of the statutory provisions to the present situation, given the declining influence of trade unions and the fact that the regulations seem to be out of step with the requirements of the CEC Framework Directive on employee representation in health and safety and also with recent case law from the European Court of Justice concerning representation. However, as the research on operation shows, the mere extension of legislative provisions to all employees without the instigation of effective support systems is unlikely to provide solutions. Given that the main institutions of support identified are cooperative managements and involved trade unions both within and outside the workplace, the legislative solutions most likely to succeed would be ones that were placed within a wider reform of trade union legislation to provide a framework of statutory support for collective bargaining and trade union recognition that brought Britain more into line with the provisions on these subjects that already exist in other member states of the European Union.
References 1 ‘Health 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9
10 11
12 13 14 15
and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974’, HMSO, London, 1974 Menckel, E. Arbefte och Ha&a 1990, 31 Jensen, P. J. Paper presented at the ETUC Conference on Health and Safety at Work in Enterprises, Copenhagen, Denmark, 22-23 June 1992 Frick, K. Econ. Ind. Democracy 1990, ll(3) Dedobbeleer, N., Champagne. F. and German, P. J. Occup. Med. 1990, 32, 1099-1103 Grunbere. L. Int. J. Health Studies 1983. 13. 621-634 Tombs, S. Social. Rev. 1990. May, 324-343 Eur. Ind. Relations Rev. 1994, 248, 25-26 Community Framework Directive(89/39l/EEC) on the introduction of measures to encourage improvements in the safety and health of workers at work’, Commission of the European Communitv, Brussels, 1989 ‘Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977’. SI No. 500. HMSO. London. 1977 Walters, D. R. in ‘Trade Unions Today and Tomorrow, Vol. II: Trade Unions in a Changing Workplace’, ed G. Spyropoulos. European Centre for Work and Society, Maastricht, The Netherlands, 1986, pp 109-126 Walters, D. R. Ind. Relations J. 1987, 18, 40-49 Beaumont, P. B. ‘Safety at Work and the Unions’, Croom Helm, London, 1983 Patterson, R. and Walter, D. R. in ‘Waiting for Change?‘, ed D. Byrne, Low Pav Unit, London. 1986 Walters, D. R. andGourlay, S. ‘Statutory Employee Involvement in Health and Safety at the Workplace: A Report of the Implementation and Effectiveness of the Safetv Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977’, HSE Contract Research Report No. 2011990. HMSO. London. 1990 Millward, N:, Stevens, M., Smart, D. and Hawes, W. R. ‘Workplace Industrial Relations in Transition’, Dartmouth Publishing, Dartmouth, UK, 1992 Anglia Business School. ‘Employee Involement: the East Anglian Experience’, Employment Relations Research and Development Centre, Anglia Polytechnic University, 1992 Labour Res. 1992, November, 6-9 Millward, N. ‘The New Industrial Relations’, Policy Studies Institute, London, 1994 I
16
17
18 19
L
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20 James P. Ind. Law J. 1992, 21, 83-103 21 Spaven, M. and Wright, C. ‘The Effectiveness of Offshore Safety Representatives and Safety Committees’: A Report to the HSE, Health and Safety Executive, London, 1993 22 Vuiliamy, D. ‘Proceedings of the International Conference on
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and safety:
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Workforce Involvement in Health and Safety Offshore: Power Language and Technology’, Scottish Trades Union Congress, Glasgow, March 1993, pp 87-91 23 Beaumont, P. B. Select Committee, ‘Occupational Safety and Health’, Select Committee, London, February 1993
J. Loss Prev. Process Ind. Vol. 8, No. 5, pp. 307-312, 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain 095&4230/95 $10.00 + 0.00
Employee representation and occupational health and safety in Britain: 1974-1994 David Walters Centre for Industrial and Environmental University, London, UK
Safety and Health, South Bank
This paper presents a review of research carried out during the last ten years concerning the implementation, operation and effectiveness of measures on employee representation in health and safety at work in Britain. It outlines the development of employee representation in health and safety following the implementation of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations 1977, both in terms of the numerical presence of safety representatives and joint safety committees and in terms of qualitative factors of representation and the influences on it. The paper describes some of the key factors that the research has identified concerning influences on employee representation, and especially focuses on the role of trade unions in promoting and supporting employee representation in health and safety. This analysis of the role of trade unions is seen as particularly significant at present, partly because of the overall decline in trade union power during the past 15 years and partly because of the unique position in Europe of the British legislative requirements on employee representation. The likelihood of changes in these requirements in the light of the provisions of the European Union Framework Directive 391189 makes questions about the strengths and weaknesses of the past and present British approach and its continued relevance particularly timely. Keywords:
employee
representation;
health and safety; participation
In 1974 in the United Kingdom, the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act (HSWA 1974) was passed’. It contained the first statutory measures that allowed for the appointment of trade union workplace representatives to represent the health and safety interests of employees while at work. Indeed, they were the first statutory measures to provide for the widespread appointment of any form of trade union workplace representative in Britain. What was the significance of these measures? What has been their impact on the organization of preventive health and safety in Britain during the 20 years since the 1974 Act? And what is their relevance to the health and safety of employees in the 1990s and beyond? These are questions that have been addressed from several different perspectives in a series of studies undertaken over the last ten years. The main focus of these studies was the role of worker organization and trade union presence in fostering and supporting effective representation in health and safety at the workplace level. It is recognized that effective representation in health and safety does not necessarily mean effective organization of health and safety in terms of an overall improvement in the prevention of accidents and illhealth arising from work and an improvement of wellbeing and the quality of employees’ health status. In common with most literature on the extent and development of preventive services, a connection is
assumed to exist between the presence of preventive services and these measures of improvement. Recent publications have questioned this assumption. In particular, Scandinavian authors2T3 have described the limited effectiveness of preventive services in workplaces in their countries despite considerable investment of resources, and have suggested their peripheral role in the overall management of organizations as the reason for their limited effectiveness4. However, such findings do not conflict with the conclusions on the operation of worker representation in the review presented here. In addition, there are a few studies that indicate a relationship between trade union membership and’ health and safety performance in Britain and other countries: for example, Dedobbeleer’s comparison of the safety performance of unionized and non-unionized construction workers in the US and Grunberg’s work on health and safety in manufacturing in Britain and France’. In addition, Tombs, in his work on accident trends in the 198Os, has suggested a link between rising levels of accidents in British workplaces and the declining influence of trade unions during this time’. It is felt that the presentation of this overview based on several studies covering the whole period since the introduction of the HSWA 1974 is particularly timely given the strong likelihood of changes in the law in Britain regarding worker representation
307
308
Employee
representation
and occupational
following the recent decisions of the European Court of Justices and the provisions of the CEC Framework Directive 89/3919, which are only partially implemented by the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (SRSC) Regulations 1977 lo. As pointed out in the following pages, the findings discussed here on the effectiveness of worker representation in health and safety at the workplace level suggest that mere extension of legislative provisions alone will be unlikely to lead to significant improvement in the effectiveness of representation in health and safety.
Research
1985-1995
Many of the issues that have been tested and further developed in the research undertaken in the last ten years were identified initially in a review of the available literature on employee involvement in health and safety in Britain up to the mid-1980s”. This review described the creation of the legislation on employee representation both at national and workplace level and paid some attention to the reasons behind its origins and the political context in which the legislation was developed. The political influence of the trade unions on the provisions for employee representation in workplace health and safety was emphasized and the corporatist political climate for the period was discussed. It was observed that the context in which the legislation operated was both politically and economically different from the one in which it was created, giving rise to problems for trade unions interested in effective employee representation in health and safety at work. The paper also outlined the state of knowledge on the practice of representation in health and safety at the workplace level, drawing upon the available British and American literature. It reviewed developments in knowledge concerning the numbers of safety representatives appointed and where they were most likely to be found, what they were entitled to do as trade union safety representatives and how the authors of other papers defined their activities in practice. It discussed the significance of the legislation for workplace trade union organization around health and safety issues and commented on the role of regulatory agencies and the vexed question of achieving compliance with this type of law. It drew some tentative conclusions about the relationship between trade union organization and the extent to which the legislative provisions actually operate in workplaces, arguing that effective representation is significantly influenced by trade union organization and that in practice the legislation was functioning as little more than guidance on good practice. However, it was recognized that these conclusions with regard to the achievement of employee representation in health and safety through the enactment, implementation and operation of the provisions of the HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977, while making valid arguments, were based on limited evidence. As a consequence, a field study of worker involvement in health and safety in
health
and safety:
0. Walters
selected workplaces in the printing industry was undertaken over a period of six months in 198S2. This study added evidence to the contentions of the previous paper, i.e. that industrial relations factors strongly influence the practice of joint regulation of health and safety. The paper on the printing industry case studies was also concerned with the processes involved in joint regulation. It found that trade union representatives were expressing a preference for collective bargaining routes for dealing with health and safety in the adverse economic climate of the mid-1980s and evidence of the relatively peripheral role of joint safety committees despite concentration on them in previous research literaturei3. The case studies suggested a relationship between the preference for a collective bargaining approach and the degree to which the function of safety representation was integrated into trade union workplace organization. Integration was observed as being greatest, albeit for different reasons, in smaller and larger firms, with most incidents of safety representatives behaving in an isolated manner occurring in medium-sized organizations. The other factor that was identified as strongly influencing safety representation was the extent to which representatives had received training. Because the study concentrated on joint regulation of health and safety only in the printing industry, which has its own special characteristics, the extent to which its findings could be extrapolated to other industries was uncertain. Around the same time, a limited study of the hotel and catering industry was undertaken14. Its findings on the relationship between workplace size, trade union organization and perceptions about the quality of health and safety in the organizations studied lend support from another industrial sector to the findings discussed in the printing industry survey, bearing in mind the qualification that, with regard to trade union recognition and workplace organization, the hotel and catering industry represents the opposite end of a spectrum compared with the printing industry. Although this survey generally supports the findings of the printing industry study, trade union workplace presence was so underdeveloped that meaningful comparison of trade union strategies could be undertaken only to a limited extent. For this reason, it was desirable to conduct a much more wide-reaching study and to try to examine in greater depth some of the factors perceived as influencing the effectiveness of trade union representation in health and safety. The opportunity to do this was presented in 1987 when a national study on the implementation and effectiveness of the SRSC Regulations 1977 was undertaken with the collaboration of the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). As well as numerical information on implementation and operation, the study included a detailed analysis of the operation of the statutory provisions in selected workplaces. Since the publication of the report in 1990, the contents of
Employee
representation
and occupational
both this study and the previous study in the printing industry have become accepted as a fairly definitive description of implementation and operation of provisions for employee involvement in health and safety in Britain. The published reportI provided statistical details on the presence, activities and training of safety representatives and the existence, role and composition of safety committees, based on the results of a survey of 4761 workplaces undertaken with the cooperation of the HSE. It was the first published survey to show that implementation of the SRSC Regulations had come to a standstill by the late 1980s and, in some industrial sectors and in small and medium-sized workplaces, there was a decline in the numbers of representatives appointed, in comparison with the results of earlier surveys. It also showed declining levels of training for safety representatives and limited use of the functions of safety representatives that are identified by the regulations. These findings were confirmed by later surveys, both small and large scale. For example, the recent third Workplace Industrial Relations Survey16 points to a similar decline. The second part of the report is a detailed analysis of the operation of the regulations resulting from studies undertaken in four separate industries. It confirms and extends the findings of the printing industry work with regard to the relationship between industrial relations factors and the operation of statutory provisions for worker representation in health and safety. In addition to the strong association between workplace size, trade union activity and consequent worker representation on health and safety, some of its key findings include: the positive relationship between the presence of a strong, centralized workplace trade union organization and effective safety representatives the necessity for integration of effective safety representatives into the workplace organization of the trade unions the importance of information and particularly training for effective safety representatives the importance of consultation between the safety representatives and the constituencies they represent the overwhelming importance of management commitment to taking seriously both health and safety issues and employee participation
Themes in analysis of the British experience of worker representation in health and safety at the workplace The sequence of publications referred to above, of which the HSE report” is the culmination, offers an analysis of several issues surrounding worker representation in health and safety at the workplace level in Britain. The role of trade union organization and other factors that influence the effective operation of employee representation in health and safety at the
health and safety:
D. Walters
309
workplace level are the main focus of the research. Several key themes have emerged. The significance of the legislation on employee representation in Britain
The provisions of HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 on employee representation in health and safety were not the first measures to be enacted in Britain, as miners had been covered by such measures (albeit inadequately implemented) for many years. Nor was Britain the first to enact such measures, as they already existed in several European countries. Indeed, the Swedish provisions, which had been in force since 1949, were frequently referred to by trade union activists in their campaigns to achieve the implementation of statutory measures in Britain. However, the British provisions do have a number of rather unique characteristics that distinguish them and have significant implications for both their implementation and operation. To begin with, there is the political and economic context of the creation of legislation and the problems posed when implementation and operation actually take place in a changed context. HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 were both products of the political and administrative system that had operated in Britain since the end of the 1940s and which has been called ‘British corporatism’. In 1979, a Conservative government was elected with the stated intention of changing this approach, and since that time a succession of governments has pursued strategies greatly at odds with the former corporatism. The fundamentally altered political and economic climate is therefore an important factor that must be accounted for in assessment of the impact of the legislation and the functioning of its organizational prerequisites. The two pieces of legislation themselves are products of different strategies for achieving joint regulation of health and safety in the workplace. The HSWA 1974 Act is heavily influenced by the notions of consensus embodied in the report of the Robens Committee, on which it is based, while its requirements for regulations on worker involvement in health and safety are the pluralistic result of a Labour government acceding to the demands of the trade unions for legal rights for trade union representatives. This means that, in both cases, but particularly with regard to the regulations, a level of trade union legitimacy as well as trade union power was assumed with the introduction of these auxiliary legislative measures, in order that they might be properly implemented and operational. However, it is this very legitimacy and power that has been systematically challenged since shortly after the introduction of the regulations. The regulations specify that only ‘recognized trade unions’ may appoint safety representatives. While in the 1970s this may have been intended to mean those organizations that were recognized as being true trade unions, during the 1980s and 1990s in law it has come to mean those trade unions that are recognized by the employer for
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collective bargaining purposes. Since such recognition is entirely voluntary on the part of employers and since the HSE has a policy of non-intervention in industrial relations matters, there is no legal rule preventing employers from refusing to recognize a trade union or derecognizing one. The potential for this restrictive definition of who is legally entitled to appoint safety representatives to backfire on its intended beneficiaries is obvious. The impact of the legislative provisions on employee representation Implementation.
The findings of the field research show that the regulations have not resulted in complete coverage of all workplaces. Arrangements for joint consultation in health and safety in accordance with their requirements are found in larger workplaces where trade unions are present but to a much lesser extent in medium-sized and smaller workplaces. By the mid to late 1980s less than ten years after their introduction, the regulations were, numerically at least, having a declining effect15. More recent studies indicate that this decline is continuing. For example, in a sample of over 700 companies in East Anglia, most of which were large and medium-sized, only 40% had recognized a trade union for workplace health and safety purposes17. The degree to which the decline is exacerbated by the denial or withdrawal of recognition of trade unions by employers is not clear; however, it is certain to be one important influence. Although no comprehensive survey exists, available figures suggest that there has been a fourfold rise in the figures for derecognition for 1988-1992 when compared with figures for 1984-198818. The impact of such trends, when coupled with other trends such as reduction in the size and numbers of workplaces in industries where trade unions traditionally had a strong presence, is bound to contribute to the problem of implementation. Operation. In terms of the operation of the SRSC Regulations 1977, safety representatives and safety committees are found in larger workplaces with recognized trade unions. The research discusssed in this article has identified some of the determinants of effectiveness for employee representation in health and safety in these workplaces. It also points out that these are probably the workplaces that least need the intervention of legislative prescription to achieve the levels of worker representation in health and safety that they enjoy. Indeed, it raises a question about how many of these well-organized workplaces would have achieved some form of workplace trade union representation in health and safety without the regulations, given the trends in the growth of scope of trade union workplace representation prior to their introduction. Their function for the workplaces where trade union safety representatives were most in evidence was not to achieve their appointment nor to
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prescribe their functions. Rather, it was to act as a guide for employers and trade unions, indicating what trade union representatives might expect from managers in the way of provision for health and safety representation. At the same time, they provided a stimulus for the extensive development of trade union training in health and safety that took place around the period of their introduction. This analysis is supported by the findings of research on how the safety representatives and safety committees operate, which draws attention to the importance of industrial relations factors, power relations at the workplace and trade union workplace organization in determining the effectiveness of safety representatives and joint safety committees that have been overlooked by many other studies of joint regulation of health and safety. Those determinants of effectiveness that the research identifies which relate to the legitimacy, power and organization of trade unions at the workplace level are, of course, the ones that are most likely to have been diminished by the broader political and economic strategies that successive governments have pursued since the introduction of the regulations. Other important influences on joint regulation of health and safety that the research points out are the role that management plays within enterprises and the role of the regulatory authorities. From the research evidence discussed, it seems unlikely that either of these influences would contribute effectively to a reversal of the trends identified. Declining levels of trade union recognition, growth of smaller enterprises and changes in the management of human resources unlikely to favour representation of employees in health and safety were already apparent in 1987, when the field work for the HSE report was undertaken. Subsequent industrial relations surveys by other researchers, notably Millward’s commentaryrg on the most recent Workplace Industrial Relations SurveyI have confirmed this, and, at the same time, have noted the absence of any alternative form of sustainable employee organization or representation emerging in British enterprises. The latter observation concerning the absence of sustainable alternatives to trade union organization is particularly important with regard to the possible consequences of extending legislative provisions to cover all employees, in line with what is generally agreed to be a more accurate interpretation of the provisions of the CEC Framework Directive than the one in the legislation introduced to implement the directive in Britain to date2”. The experience of the implementation of the Safety Representatives and Safety Committees (Offshore) Regulations 1990 is instructive. Introduced as a consequence of the Piper Alpha disaster, in an industry where trade unions were not recognized, these regulations allow for the election of non-trade union safety representatives. Their operation was recently reviewed by Spaven and Wright21, but the evidence they present on the effectiveness of the offshore regulations is limited and their findings have
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been seriously questioned**. The study describes a situation with many features that are peculiar to the oil industry of the UK continental shelf, and, as such, fails to provide convincing evidence to suggest that the wider application of similar measures would be likely to be effective without the involvement of sustainable institutions of worker representation. Other studies of the operation of non-union safety representatives are rare and also fail to show any significant features to encourage the idea that more widespread application of non-union employee representation in health and safety could be successful without extensive additional support23. The space created by the decline of trade union legitimacy and power might have been filled by a more aggressive or pro-active approach to the enforcement of the regulations by the HSE and local authorities and the regulations might have assumed a more prescriptive role as a result. However, the HSE research found no evidence of the enforcing authorities treating the SRSC Regulations as anything other than the auxiliary legislation it was originally intended to be. The same would apply to the effectiveness of nonunion representation. It is likely that a diminished role for trade unions in supporting safety representation would need to be compensated for by increased support from other institutions such as management and the regulatory authorities. There is no evidence to date to suggest that this support is forthcoming except in isolated and unrepresentative cases.
Conclusions The studies on employee representation in workplace health and safety in the United Kingdom discussed here confirm a number of points about the implementation and operation of provisions on employee representation and the factors that influence them. Britain’s unique system of statutory rights for recognized trade unions to appoint safety representatives and the functions given to them was introduced by the HSWA 1974 and the SRSC Regulations 1977 in October 1978. Since that time, implementation of the provisions enjoyed a brief period of development until the mid-1980s, since which time trends of implementation have slowed and in some cases reversed. The decline in implementation can be attributed to the changes in the nature of employment and in the role of trade unions, as the factors identified as most influential in promoting implementation are workplace size, sector and trade union organization. The extent of trade union organization and its commitment to health and safety were also shown to be influential in the operation of the provisions within organizations. Also critical to operation was support from management. The regulatory authorities, despite their potential for involvement, continue to treat the provisions as auxiliary legislation, leaving the achievement of their operation largely to their beneficiaries. The regulations work best in large wellorganized workplaces and are least implemented and
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operated in small workplaces. Such findings beg questions about the overall value of the statutory measures, since it is large and well-organized workplaces which are most likely to have had provisions for employee representation without the regulations. The main question that the research raises concerns the continued relevance of the statutory provisions to the present situation, given the declining influence of trade unions and the fact that the regulations seem to be out of step with the requirements of the CEC Framework Directive on employee representation in health and safety and also with recent case law from the European Court of Justice concerning representation. However, as the research on operation shows, the mere extension of legislative provisions to all employees without the instigation of effective support systems is unlikely to provide solutions. Given that the main institutions of support identified are cooperative managements and involved trade unions both within and outside the workplace, the legislative solutions most likely to succeed would be ones that were placed within a wider reform of trade union legislation to provide a framework of statutory support for collective bargaining and trade union recognition that brought Britain more into line with the provisions on these subjects that already exist in other member states of the European Union.
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Workforce Involvement in Health and Safety Offshore: Power Language and Technology’, Scottish Trades Union Congress, Glasgow, March 1993, pp 87-91 23 Beaumont, P. B. Select Committee, ‘Occupational Safety and Health’, Select Committee, London, February 1993