Wintry weather advice
With winter on the way, unions have highlighted the risks of slips, trips and falls and travelling to work in extreme weather conditions.
Earlier this month, the CWU communication workers’ union and Royal Mail launched a joint safety campaign targeting slips, trips and falls and aiming to ensure that accident and injury statistics fall, rather than workers.
The initiative included spot checks by safety reps and managers at delivery units around the country and focused on four key areas that can reduce the risk of injury: how best to prepare; identifying potential hazards; ensuring walk risk assessments and dynamic risk assessments are carried out; and fully complying with appropriate safe systems of work.
Teachers’ union NASUWT Scotland issued a new Adverse weather bulletin advising that all employers should have a policy in place for adverse weather that may affect the opening of schools.
It says decisions about whether schools should open must take into account advice from the police and other agencies about travel conditions and conditions around the school.
Schools should also consider advice from the local authority, as appropriate, access to the school site for pedestrians, drivers and emergency vehicles, and the availability of staff.
It warns against “seeking to keep the school open when common sense and the advice from the police and other agencies is not to travel, or shovelling snow to seek to open the school, despite the conditions and warnings”.
www.nasuwt.org.uk/uploads/assets/uploaded/914078e7-43fd-4f13-b2f92031ddc304af.pdf