Day 132 - 07 Jun 95 - Page 16
1 A. Not in defiance of management. In essence, you want
2 safety to be a managed function the same as everything
3 else. It is not the employee who takes action, it is the
4 manager who takes action if there are problems. What you
5 want is for the employee to recognise that factor and raise
6 it and you provide a channel of communication for that to
7 be done. That is the essence of joint consultation.
8
9 Q. Yes, but where management does not take action it is in the
10 interests of employees' safety that employees have the
11 independent right to take action themselves, they or their
12 representatives?
13 A. That is not conferred by the safety representative
14 regulation.
15
16 Q. No, but I am asking you, as an expert on safety, whether
17 that would benefit employees having that power to take
18 independent action, if necessary, in defiance of management
19 to enforce safety procedures?
20 A. No. It is up to the manager to take a risk assessment
21 of what the situation is or when something is brought up.
22 Certainly it helps if you have a back up service such as
23 the one that Jill Barnes operates in which instance any
24 individual who is aggrieved could, perhaps, phone up
25 directly and say: "Can you get the safety adviser to look
26 at this?" I can see no problem with that and I would agree
27 with you that that, as a long stop, could be quite useful.
28
29 Q. There is no reason why employees should have to phone
30 anybody else?
31 A. I am sorry, you have just said would it be useful if
32 there was someone else to consult. I have accepted the
33 fact that there are instances where somebody should do.
34 You are now telling me that it is not necessary. I am
35 sorry.
36
37 Q. I am saying that if the employees were empowered themselves
38 to take action or their own representative that they have
39 chosen in that store -----
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Say what the action is they are empowered to
42 take, because I am having difficulty with that. What are
43 you suggesting the employees should be able to do? Give an
44 example of something unsafe.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: Any machine that an employee considered to be
47 unsafe. Either they would say: "I am not touching that
48 machine; I do not care what the management says", and they
49 would have protection for that attitude, or they would have
50 their own representative, a fellow crew member, who would
51 have the power to say: "Yes, do not touch that machine;
52 no-one touch that machine. It does not matter what
53 management say, nothing will happen. If management tries
54 to take action then we will stop the job". That is an
55 excellent attitude, is it not, for safety culture?
56 A. No, it does not work like that. What you want is for a
57 manager to make a proper risk assessment. If you want, if
58 you like, a long stop for that sort of situation, you will
59 find that in every workplace there is a prominent notice
60 giving an abstract of the Health & Safety at Work Act with
