Workplace Report October 2011

Health & safety news

Bakers call for limit on workplace temperature

Bakers’ union BFAWU has launched a campaign, called Cool It, to persuade the government to introduce a maximum workplace temperature.

The union’s general secretary, Ronnie Draper, said: “It is high time that government, whatever colour, recognises the misery that is heaped upon UK workers by working in extremely hot temperatures.”

John McDonnell MP, one of BFAWU’s parliamentary group members, has put forward an Early Day Motion requesting that the government “provide clear, coherent and enforceable requirements for employers about how to combat heat in the workplace, including the introduction of a maximum working temperature of around 30 degrees Celsius and 27 degrees Celsius for those doing strenuous work.”