Health and Safety Reps in COVID-19—Representation Unleashed?

Sian Moore (), Minjie Cai, Chris Ball and Matt Flynn
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Sian Moore: Greenwich Business School, University of Greenwich (Maritime Campus), London SE10 9LS, UK
Minjie Cai: Greenwich Business School, University of Greenwich (Maritime Campus), London SE10 9LS, UK
Chris Ball: Greenwich Business School, University of Greenwich (Maritime Campus), London SE10 9LS, UK
Matt Flynn: School of Business, University of Leicester, Leicester LE2 1RQ, UK

IJERPH, 2023, vol. 20, issue 8, 1-18

Abstract: The paper explores the role of UK union health and safety representatives and changes to representative structures governing workplace and organisational Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) during COVID-19. It draws upon a survey of 648 UK Trade Union Congress (TUC) Health and Safety (H&S) representatives, as well as case studies of 12 organisations in eight key sectors. The survey indicates expanded union H&S representation, but only half of the respondents reported H&S committees in their organisations. Where formal representative mechanisms existed, they provided the basis for more informal day-to-day engagement between management and the union. However, the present study suggests that the legacy of deregulation and the absence of organisational infrastructures meant that the autonomous collective representation of workers’ interests over OHS, independent of structures, was crucial to risk prevention. While joint regulation and engagement over OHS was possible in some workplaces, OHS in the pandemic has been contested. Contestation challenges pre-COVID-19 scholarship suggestingthat H&S representatives had been captured by management in the context of unitarist practice. The tension between union power and the wider legal infrastructure remains salient.

Keywords: COVID-19; occupational health and safety; trade unions; worker representation; joint committees (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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