Hazards Campaign is the UK’s leading campaign organisation on health and safety. At their annual conference from 5-7 September, BUCU was presented with an excellence award for our workload campaign and fight to put work-related stress firmly on the University’s agenda. 

Having accepted the award on behalf of the BUCU committee, our Health and Safety Officer Dave Watton offers his reflections on a moving and inspiring conference.

‘This award is testament to the dedication of not just members of the BUCU committee past and present but also the support from our colleagues in BUnison and the involvement of our membership, who have taken part in workload surveys, workplace inspections and contributed to union focus groups during the recent (HSE) inspection.

‘Our success in convincing the HSE to inspect the University over its failure to adequately manage work-related stress was highlighted by a fact repeated several times during the conference: that many health and safety reps never experience a HSE inspection over their entire careers. A major factor behind this is the strategic defunding and defanging of the HSE by successive governments, a process that has continued under the current Labour government.

‘Main sessions at the conference focused on both longstanding and novel health and safety issues. “Can AI ever be good for our health?” charted the pernicious rise of algorithmic management and the cyberboss. “Workers health crisis amid a lack of enforcement” documented the decimation of the HSE since 2010 and featured a moving presentationby Harminder Bains of Leigh Day Partners on the continuing risks presented by asbestos in schools and workplaces. Birmingham City Council won the Bad Employer of the Year award for its treatment of striking bin workers.

‘These were three of my main take-aways:

• Union committees should include a technology rep to deal with the risks from AI in the workplace
• We must keep pushing for action on dealing with and removing asbestos.
• BUCU should build on and diversify our programme of health & safety inspections
• beyond work-related stress.

‘Finally, in the words of retiring Chair of Hazards Campaign, Janet Newsham, “health and safety work is ultimately about love, collective action, and bringing workers home safe from work”.’

Thanks especially to Dave Watton for his hard work and leadership on this campaign!  A well-deserved award.