How bad will it be . . . .

[royoftherovers]

7 hours ago, Shahpor said:

Hadn't considered that.

Can you even ask for an inspection and do they have any authority if a breach is found?

I will have to do some research.

Thanks John.

Just give them the facts supported by such evidence as you have and they will decide whether an inspection is required.

Good luck.

[Shahpor]

Thanks John, I have filled out a report online.

Now to wait and see if anything comes of it.

[royoftherovers]

2 minutes ago, Shahpor said:

Thanks John, I have filled out a report online.

Now to wait and see if anything comes of it.

Good luck Shahpor, I wish you well.

H&S Inspectorate do not enjoy legislation not being complied with nor the resulting publicity if they do not pursue law breakers as they should.

[Cotswold Pete]

My employer was expecting me to go back in office at least one day a week, and was surprised when I expressed my concerns.  Thank heavens they were beaten up verbally by another manager who defended my 'Why go in when I can work from  home'.

I am still recovering with Long Covid issues, but at least I am getting better.  I know if two people who have dies of Covid, one of them was isolating to the ultimate extreme due to their other health issues, but the bug still got them.

This bug still ain't finished messing us about, so anyone who has suffered, i know how yuck it is, and anyone who thinks its not a problem to them, well I say otherwise, and I suspect people being forced to be in work (because the boss thinks they are shirkers) is creating the right conditions to spread the beast.

Some day life is going to get back to normal(ish) we just need to keep on doing the right thing.

[royoftherovers]

13 minutes ago, Cotswold Pete said:

My employer was expecting me to go back in office at least one day a week, and was surprised when I expressed my concerns.  Thank heavens they were beaten up verbally by another manager who defended my 'Why go in when I can work from  home'.

I am still recovering with Long Covid issues, but at least I am getting better.  I know if two people who have dies of Covid, one of them was isolating to the ultimate extreme due to their other health issues, but the bug still got them.

This bug still ain't finished messing us about, so anyone who has suffered, i know how yuck it is, and anyone who thinks its not a problem to them, well I say otherwise, and I suspect people being forced to be in work (because the boss thinks they are shirkers) is creating the right conditions to spread the beast.

Some day life is going to get back to normal(ish) we just need to keep on doing the right thing.

Stay safe and continue your recovery Pete. Good luck.

[ambermarine]

17 hours ago, Cotswold Pete said:

My employer was expecting me to go back in office at least one day a week, and was surprised when I expressed my concerns.  Thank heavens they were beaten up verbally by another manager who defended my 'Why go in when I can work from  home'.

I am still recovering with Long Covid issues, but at least I am getting better.  I know if two people who have dies of Covid, one of them was isolating to the ultimate extreme due to their other health issues, but the bug still got them.

This bug still ain't finished messing us about, so anyone who has suffered, i know how yuck it is, and anyone who thinks its not a problem to them, well I say otherwise, and I suspect people being forced to be in work (because the boss thinks they are shirkers) is creating the right conditions to spread the beast.

Some day life is going to get back to normal(ish) we just need to keep on doing the right thing.

Everyone is their own safety officer and at the end of the day that decision is yours not your Manager's,keep safe.

[harrylime]

On 1/10/2021 at 2:19 PM, royoftherovers said:

Good luck Shahpor, I wish you well.

H&S Inspectorate do not enjoy legislation not being complied with nor the resulting publicity if they do not pursue law breakers as they should.

The HSE are the enforcing authority for most workplaces, although for some it is the Environmental Health/Health and Safety section of the local authority. Don't expect much from the HSE, they are chronically understaffed, and it's not easy to get them to take action. If appropriate, they can serve an improvement notice or even a prohibition notice. They have extensive powers, e.g. of entry etc.

 

[harrylime]

On 1/12/2021 at 10:00 AM, ambermarine said:

Everyone is their own safety officer and at the end of the day that decision is yours not your Manager's,keep safe.

Employees have the right not to go to work if they consider the workplace to present serious and imminent danger. Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act sets this out very clearly. I'm surprised we do not hear more about this, although the level of risk can be very subjective, it's down to interpretation and opinions can differ greatly. Most employees would not know about this legislation and would be reluctant to use it anyway. This is where unions are invaluable. My view is that the risk with the new strain of the virus is not the same as it was a couple of months ago, but I doubt if many if any risk assessments have been reviewed. Many employees, including my daughter, are being made to attend workplaces rather than work from home, even in situations in which the risk to employees is not adequately controlled, and sometimes in circumstances in which physical attendance is not strictly necessary. 

Edited January 13, 2021 by harrylime
typo

[Shahpor]

4 hours ago, harrylime said:

The HSE are the enforcing authority for most workplaces, although for some it is the Environmental Health/Health and Safety section of the local authority. Don't expect much from the HSE, they are chronically understaffed, and it's not easy to get them to take action. If appropriate, they can serve an improvement notice or even a prohibition notice. They have extensive powers, e.g. of entry etc.

 

Sorry, I forgot to update.

I heard back, and the official reply was:

"We have reviewed your concern and concluded that there is insufficient information for us to take further action on this occasion."

Not quite sure what else I could have provided, so I suppose that is that.

Oh well, it seems that no one really cares if companies take advantage of the situation and knowingly breaking lockdown rules.  No wonder this pandemic is dragging on so long...

[royoftherovers]

Just now, Shahpor said:

Sorry, I forgot to update.

I heard back, and the official reply was:

"We have reviewed your concern and concluded that there is insufficient information for us to take further action on this occasion."

Not quite sure what else I could have provided, so I suppose that is that.

Oh well, it seems that no one really cares if companies take advantage of the situation and knowingly breaking lockdown rules.  No wonder this pandemic is dragging on so long...

Depressing I know Shahpor, but I would write back and invite them to appraise you of the kind of information they would need to enable them to take further action. Then give them what they require if you are able and then if they refuse to act, I would write to the local/Regional Press.

Your decision to act or not.

[ambermarine]

I Have 40 years background in the construction industry and a good part of it was in the scaffolding industry started as a labourer and worked my way up to a contracts manager for one of the then big six nationals there were no one man bands working from the back of a wagon in the sixties when I started and the big six monopolised the industry and everyone who worked for them was cards in.

I had just been promoted to a supervisor coming off the tools as the HSE came into being and most of the staff in the HSE were academics with no practical experience and were using a bible they had concocted with regards to our industry from the codes of practice parts 1/2and 3 formulated by the NASC national association of scaffolding contractors 3 being the section that covered suspended working platforms such as cradles and the type of platform used under bridges .

This was one part of the industry that I had worked in at places like Windscale and Seaton Carew power station up in Hartlepool as well as other massive building projects.

Whilst I was up at Windscale( we would go for two days every couple of weeks) working on an extention to the ponds that were used for holding the flasks of used plutonium I had cause to see in the roof whilst erecting cradles  pigeons with severe moulting issues.

Bearing in mind this was 1970 and the only checks for radiation was a badge we handed in to be scanned at the end of a shift to gauge how much radiation we had been exposed too. I told my supervisor I was not going there again and was promptly taken off that team which was a elite high earning position .Two years ago those ponds are now classed as the highest level of radiation in the world and they are still trying to figure out a way of safely decommissioning them they have a 300 metre safety zone around them.

I was in my early twenties then and having spent the previous two years working at heights of up to 300 feet without harness and the rest of the safety gear they have to use today grew a sixth sense of what was dangerous.

Now the point of this ramble is I believe that since the introduction of the Health and safety at work act the initiative for a person to think for themselves as been eroded to the point that they cannot and expect some one else to think for them.

I said earlier that when I became a supervisor it was about the time that the safety officers were visiting our branches and spieling about how they were going to clean up the scaffolding industry and when they had finished my Manager who had erected the scaffolding for the construction of  the dish on the Jodrell bank telescope( a worlds first) remarked Well it is a good job you guys were not around when Adam was a lad, to which they retorted why?" Because we would still be living in caves",said my manager.

[royoftherovers]

A wonderful Post Phil. Many thanks.

If I remember correctly Windscale was a "new" name for Calder Hall, Britain`s first Nuclear Power Station.

The Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was a Licence for so called Consultants to cash in and blind Employers and Employees in the art of box ticking. In essence it was laudable, but too often decisions were hidden behind the phrase "elf and safety, mate". We in UK tried to play it by the book but our so called partners in Europe,  particularly France, Spain and Italy, turned a blind eye. 

I think it was you in a recent post who stated that  Health and Safety in the Workplace begins with each individual. So true and often ignored by weak management,

And then came BS5750 and then ISO9000 and by then it was my time to retire. But at least in our Organisation every single employee was alert to the fact that THEY were responsible for their own Health and Safety.

I still think back to the old case of Uddin v Portland Cement and smile, thinking that in recent times Uddin would have triumphed. Utterly ludicrous.

[Cotswold Pete]

On 1/14/2021 at 6:00 PM, royoftherovers said:

We in UK tried to play it by the book but our so called partners in Europe,  particularly France, Spain and Italy, turned a blind eye. 

I think it was you in a recent post who stated that  Health and Safety in the Workplace begins with each individual. So true and often ignored by weak management,

So true, having watched the rise of 'ISO this' and 'BSI that', we have ended up with lots of documents and less ownership and responsibility. 

I wonder if we 'obey' the rules more because we are a more litigious country than a lot of places in Europe.

[BigBoomer]

Whilst HSE can be a PITA, the number of lives saved/improved by the rules being enforced over the years has been massive. HSE is there to provide a minimum level of protection for those who don't know better. Before HSE workers were unwittingly exposed to all kinds of nasties and very little was done about them because companies would always put profit ahead of safety even when they knew they were killing their employees.

ISO is International Standards Organisation, based in Switzerland.
It has nothing to do with Health and Safety nor anything to do with the EU other than that most EU states are members of ISO, along with the UK.
The EU equivalent of HSE is EU-OSHA https://osha.europa.eu/en and yes they copied many of their rules from HSE when they were setup in 1994.

I work with MV Linear Accelerators used for Radio Oncology (pic below) and our safety rules are extensive and complex but then again you aren't be allowed anywhere near it until you have done extensive training and passed several exams. The machines are very heavy and powerful (crush damage), can electrocute you (very high voltages), contain hot coolant, and emit VERY high powered X-Rays. I wear a film badge all the time when working and that is used to measure my total dose over a 3 month period, but when I go into the treatment or plant rooms (behind the blue wall) I also wear a dosimeter that shows my immediate dosage and alerts me when the level exceeds an extremely low threshold. Both of these are a requirement thanks to HSE.

As for Calder Hall/Windscale/Sellafield it's all the same. Calder Hall was the name of the Nuclear Reactors built at Windscale in the 1950s to manufacture weapons grade material for the UKs nuclear bombs and later on for power production. Windscale became Sellafield as part of a mostly pointless rebranding exercise in 1981 following public reactions to the Three Mile Island accident.

[royoftherovers]

Thanks George-a great contribution to the thread.

[Malc]

on a lesser note, many years ago I was quite involved with Longplayer, a company that provided insurance coy replacements for stolen etc videos, records, dvds and the like ....  long gone with the advent of say, spotify etc

NOW we had a big big issue with office waste bins, and yes, it was a big H&S issue at the time believe it or not

 The rules frequently moved between having metal bins, wicker bins, cardboard bins and I think finally back to metal bins for fire safety issues .....  and quite ridiculous costs in between all the changes

Malc