The Hazards Campaign is a UK network established in 1988 to campaign for improved workplace health, safety and welfare, and a reduction in the incidence of work-related injury, ill-health and death. It brings together Hazards Centres, Occupational Health Projects, trade unions, health and safety groups, specific campaigns and individual health and safety activists. Specific campaign groups include the Construction Safety Campaign, the Centre for Corporate Accountability (CCA), the UK WorkStress Network, Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK), asbestos victims' support groups, and RSI Action.
The campaign works by: sharing information and skills; campaigning on specific issues; acting as a national voice; issuing press releases; holding conferences; establishing national initiatives, including Workers Memorial Day; lobbying MPs, MEPs and statutory bodies like the Health & Safety Commission and the Health & Safety Executive, and organising demonstrations and protests.
The Campaign is a worker-oriented organisation, and promotes trade union organisation in workplaces, increased worker involvement and participation in decision-making, and a radial perspective on the issues. It currently (2006) promotes and supports a number of emerging safety representative networks in different parts of the UK. It meets about four or five times a year; these meetings are open to anyone sharing the aims of the campaign. Its highest profile event is the annual Hazards Conference, the largest regular rank-and-file event in Europe, which attracts around 600 delegates every year.
The Solidarity Federation, also known by the abbreviation SolFed, is a federation of class struggle anarchists active in Britain. The organisation advocates a strategy of anarcho-syndicalism as a method of abolishing capitalism and the state, and describes itself as a "revolutionary union". In 1994 it adopted its current name, having previously been the Direct Action Movement since 1979, and before that the Syndicalist Workers' Federation since 1950.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU), originally the Australasian Council of Trade Unions, is the largest peak body representing workers in Australia. It is a national trade union centre of 46 affiliated unions and eight trades and labour councils. The ACTU is a member of the International Trade Union Confederation.
The Labour Research Department (LRD) is an independent trade union based research organisation, based in London, that provides information to support trade union activity and campaigns. About 2,000 trade union organisations, including 51 national unions in the UK, representing more than 99% of total Trades Union Congress (TUC) membership, are affiliated.
The Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 is a US labor law governing the federal law of occupational health and safety in the private sector and federal government in the United States. It was enacted by Congress in 1970 and was signed by President Richard Nixon on December 29, 1970. Its main goal is to ensure that employers provide employees with an environment free from recognized hazards, such as exposure to toxic chemicals, excessive noise levels, mechanical dangers, heat or cold stress, or unsanitary conditions. The Act created the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH).
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is a decentralised agency of the European Union with the task of collecting, analysing and disseminating relevant information that can serve the needs of people involved in safety and health at work. Set up in 1994 by Council Regulation (EC) No 2062/94 of 18 July 1994, EU-OSHA is based in Bilbao, Spain, where it has a staff of occupational safety and health, communication and administrative specialists. William Cockburn is the current Interim Executive Director of EU-OSHA.
Occupational hygiene is the anticipation, recognition, evaluation, control, and confirmation (ARECC) of protection from risks associated with exposures to hazards in, or arising from, the workplace that may result in injury, illness, impairment, or affect the well-being of workers and members of the community. These hazards or stressors are typically divided into the categories biological, chemical, physical, ergonomic and psychosocial. The risk of a health effect from a given stressor is a function of the hazard multiplied by the exposure to the individual or group. For chemicals, the hazard can be understood by the dose response profile most often based on toxicological studies or models. Occupational hygienists work closely with toxicologists for understanding chemical hazards, physicists for physical hazards, and physicians and microbiologists for biological hazards. Environmental and occupational hygienists are considered experts in exposure science and exposure risk management. Depending on an individual's type of job, a hygienist will apply their exposure science expertise for the protection of workers, consumers and/or communities.
Safety culture is the collection of the beliefs, perceptions and values that employees share in relation to risks within an organization, such as a workplace or community. Safety culture is a part of organizational culture, and has been described in a variety of ways; notably the National Academies of Science and the Association of Land Grant and Public Universities have published summaries on this topic in 2014 and 2016.
Royal Society for Public Health (RSPH) is an independent, multi-disciplinary charity dedicated to the improvement of the public's health.
The National Day of Mourning, or Workers' Mourning Day is observed in Canada on 28 April. It commemorates workers who have been killed, injured or suffered illness due to workplace related hazards and occupational exposures.
The Wales TUC is the co-ordinating body of trade unions in Wales. With 48 affiliated unions as of 2021, the Wales TUC represents nearly 400,000 workers.
Workers' Memorial Day, also known as International Workers' Memorial Day or International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured, takes place annually around the world on April 28, an international day of remembrance and action for workers killed, disabled, injured, or made unwell by their work. In Canada, it is commemorated as the National Day of Mourning.
North American Occupational Safety and Health (NAOSH) Week is an annual celebration that happens during the first full week of May. The aim of the event is to raise awareness about occupational safety, health, and the environment (OSH&E) in order to avoid workplace injuries and illnesses.
A safety management system (SMS) is designed to manage safety risk in the workplace, occupational safety being defined as the reduction of risk to a level that is as low as is reasonably practicable (ALARP) to prevent people getting hurt.
Prevention through design (PtD), also called safety by design usually in Europe, is the concept of applying methods to minimize occupational hazards early in the design process, with an emphasis on optimizing employee health and safety throughout the life cycle of materials and processes. It is a concept and movement that encourages construction or product designers to "design out" health and safety risks during design development. The process also encourages the various stakeholders within a construction project to be collaborative and share the responsibilities of workers' safety evenly. The concept supports the view that along with quality, programme and cost; safety is determined during the design stage. It increases the cost-effectiveness of enhancements to occupational safety and health.
Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) is a nonprofit organisation based in the UK which campaigns on behalf of families bereaved by workplace deaths. It was founded in July 2006 by members of the Bereaved by Work North West support group and the Greater Manchester Hazards Centre. The organisation campaigns for increased funding for the enforcement of health and safety law and changes to the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 - which currently only imposes financial penalties - to make directors criminally responsible for health and safety offences with the possibility of imprisonment. Co-founder Hilda Palmer said: "Fines alone are an insufficient penalty for taking a life." FACK also lobbies for the introduction of juries at all work-related inquests in England and Wales. They also provide guidance for bereaved families to obtain legal help and emotional support.
Occupational safety and health (OSH), also commonly referred to as occupational health and safety (OHS), occupational health, or occupational safety, is a multidisciplinary field concerned with the safety, health, and welfare of people at work. These terms also refer to the goals of this field, so their use in the sense of this article was originally an abbreviation of occupational safety and health program/department etc.
The Trades Union Congress (TUC) is a national trade union centre, a federation of trade unions in England and Wales, representing the majority of trade unions. There are 48 affiliated unions, with a total of about 5.5 million members. Frances O'Grady became General Secretary in 2013 and presented her resignation in 2022, with Paul Nowak becoming the next General Secretary in January 2023.
The Accord on Fire and Building Safety in Bangladesh was signed on 15 May 2013. It is a five-year independent, legally binding Global Framework Agreement between global brands, retailers and trade unions designed to build a safe and healthy Bangladeshi Ready Made Garment (RMG) Industry. The agreement was created in the immediate aftermath of the Rana Plaza building collapse that led to the death of more than 1100 people and injured more than 2000. In June 2013, an implementation plan was agreed leading to the incorporation of the Bangladesh Accord Foundation in the Netherlands in October 2013.
American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) is a United States-based professional society for health care professionals in the field of occupational safety and health. ACOEM is the pre-eminent physician-led organization that champions the health of workers, safety of workplaces, and quality of environments.
A psychosocial hazard or work stressor is any occupational hazard related to the way work is designed, organized and managed, as well as the economic and social contexts of work. Unlike the other three categories of occupational hazard, they do not arise from a physical substance, object, or hazardous energy.