Stressed to breaking point - how managers are pushing people to the brink!
1996 TUC survey of safety reps (TUC 1996 Survey of Safety Reps - initial findings)
Contents Background
Stress and Overwork
Jobs which cause Stress
What Causes Stress?
Top Health and Safety concerns by sector
Major Safety issues by sector
TUC Proposals for actionBackground
Under the 1977 Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations, trade unions recognised by an employer have the legal right to appoint safety reps, volunteers elected from the workforce, who have a series of legal rights to information, consultation and time off for training. There are about 200,000 safety reps overall.
This year, for the first time, the TUC surveyed safety reps through their unions, with a series of questions aimed at identifying their concerns and experiences. The full results of the survey will be released later this year, and individual research projects based on its findings will be carried out in 1997. So far, 7,268 safety reps have responded, from large and small organisations - over 1,000 from workplaces with fewer than 30 employees. They were asked to identify the main hazard in their workplace of concern to their colleagues.Stress and overwork
The most commonly reported concern was occupational stress and overwork, further confirmation that British workers risk ill-health as a result of the hire and fire culture which has led to widespread job insecurity and pressure on employees to work longer arid longer hours.
Overall, 68% of Safety Reps identified stress as one of the top five health and safety concerns of their work colleagues, a much higher rating than for the next most mentioned hazards (see below). This figure did not vary greatly according to the size of the workforce represented, although nearly three quarters of safety reps from organisations employing fewer than 100 staff reported stress as a major concern -73% in firms with fewer than 50 staff and 72% for those with 50-100 staff. The ratings for workplaces with more employees were not significantly smaller, with 64% and 65% of safety reps from medium sized enterprises (100-200 workers and 200-1000 workers) reporting stress as a major concern. And in the largest organisations, with over 1,000 employees, 68% cited stress as a major issue.
Stress and overwork clearly affects workers in all sizes of firm, and in the public sector as well as the private sector.Jobs which cause stress
Breaking the responses down by industrial sector suggests that the public sector has higher levels of stress than the private sector, suggesting that the impact of years of public sector cuts has left workforces demoralised and under pressure. But other sectors show severe cause for concern too.
An alarming 89% of safety reps in the voluntary sector cited stress as a major health and safety issue, the highest rate of all sectors. Union reports from members in the voluntary sector have highlighted poor management practices, bullying and, above all, the abuse of voluntary sector workers' commitment to their clients as sources of significant problems in recent year. Voluntary organisations are always under pressure to deliver more services to disadvantaged groups, with fewer resources, but this is no excuse for piling the pressure onto staff.
Education ranks second in the stress ratings, with 80% (1,459) of safety reps from the sector reporting it as a major problem. Recent concerns about rising class sizes, violence in schools, and the extra workloads associated with educational cuts and the introduction of curriculum reforms have all been identified as major sources of stress for teachers.
Cuts in the finance sector as a result of mergers and heightened competition are thought to be the key factor in the high level of stress reported by banking and finance sector safety reps, with 78% of them citing it as a top complaint of their work colleagues.
Stress and overwork was the only health and safety issue which attained the 50% mark across all sectors. Of 13 identified sectors, stress was cited by more than 70% of Safety Reps in the voluntary, education, banking and finance sectors, local government (74%), central government (72'%), health services (71% (71%), leisure services (71% ) and transport and communications (70%). Workers in agriculture, distribution and hotels, energy and water, and other services all reported stress as a major problem.What causes stress?
The Health and Safety Executive has issued guidance for employers on preventing occupational stress which identifies a number of potential causes, including overwork and lack of clear instructions. Stress can lead to a range of physical ailments, such as heart disease, mental problems, lack of sleep, loss of resistance to illness, and even allergies.
The TUC survey asked safety reps who identified stress as a major problem to explain in more detail what factors affected their members.
The main cause identified was "new management techniques", such as quality circles and performance related pay. These new techniques can limit a trade union's ability to defend working people from unreasonable demands made by management. Rather than negotiating changes with unions, managers may impose the changes, which makes the individual employees feel undervalued and without any influence over their work patterns.
Other causes of stress identified by safety reps included long hours, having major implications for health and safety in Britain. Transport rated highest in the long hours stakes, with 46% of respondents citing hours of work as a main concern. Previous TUC research has shown that British workers work longer hours than most other European workers, and that, against the trend, the working week in Britain is actually getting longer. The European Union has enacted a Working Time Directive which would place limits on the working week, and the British Government is trying to resist implementing it (a judgement will shortly be made on the case currently before the European Court). The TUC's finding that longer hours are a major source of occupational stress shows that working time is a health and safety issue, as the European Commission and the TUC have consistently argued.Factor causing stress as a proportion of Safety Reps identifying the factor as a cause of stress in their workplace
