How Real is Worker Involvement in Health and Safety?

The Robens committee on Safety and Health at Work recognised the cardinal importance of worker co‐operation with management if workplaces were to be made safer places and believed that worker involvement would help overcome the apathy which it felt was the primary cause of accidents at the workplace. The Health and Safety at Work Act apparently accepted the views of the Committee and created a statutory framework for individual and collective involvement in health and safety issues at the workplace. The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees Regulations subsequently made under the Act provided for the appointment of safety representatives by recognised trade unions possessing a variety of rights and functions. In doing so, however, they may arguably have owed more to the philosophy which conceived the Employment Protection Act's provisions for promoting the improvement of industrial relations and extension of collective bargaining than the Select Committee's desire for total workplace involvement.