TODAY is the 20th annual RMT National Health and Safety Advisory Conference, the largest-attended conference in the RMT’s diary.

In March 2003 80 RMT safety reps met at the first health and safety conference where they passed a resolution to establish the annual conference.  

This resolution acknowledged the need for safety to be recognised within RMT constitution and for a network to educate and empower health and safety reps.

The RMT advisory Health and Safety (H&S) committee was established at the same time as the annual conference, so that RMT could take up health and safety issues on a much more serious and sustained basis — something which is necessary as H&S is key part of RMT’s work.

The conference has gone from strength to strength since and we continue to improve and build on the support given to RMT reps. Ensuring that members are safe at work is a huge priority for the union. The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the importance of the safety rep role in the workplace. An army of safety reps battling away to keep our members safe.

RMT continues to improve support given to its safety reps. I will shortly be reissuing an RMT safety reps charter in which I explain what the union will be doing to support our safety reps and how they can use the rights afforded to them under the Safety Representative and Safety Committee Regulations 1977 to build the union in their workplaces. I will also be updating the health and safety section of our website so it can be better used as a resource for our safety reps.

To mark the 20th anniversary of the conference, delegates will be given new RMT safety reps materials, including a clip board, with “RMT safety rep” emblazoned on the back of it and a RMT safety reps HV vest so that they can carry out safety inspections and other functions while advertising the union to their fellow workers.

At this year’s conference the theme is the role of the safety representative in the Covid/post-Covid “brave new world.” Conference will, as in previous years, feature a wide range of speakers from the movement and the industries in which our members work, including former shadow transport secretary Andy McDonald MP, TUC Health and Safety policy officer Shelly Asquith, Bakers Union general secretary Sarah Woolley, Hilda Palmer from the Hazards Campaign and Graham Petersen from the Trade Union Clean Air Campaign; who will lead debate on the issue of clean air, air quality and ventilation.

The conference comes at a time when RMT members are facing huge attacks from the government and the Department for Transport on their jobs and terms and conditions. My union will do everything in its power to resist these attacks and we will need all RMT reps to play their part in this fightback.

 As the latest government announcements this week have shown, my members on the front line are once again being placed at serious risk and given the lack of protection they have in the face of potential infection from passengers, RMT will continue to press all employers to have the best quality ventilation systems in place.

The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic is stark. At the end of last year I conducted a Mental Health in a Covid-19 World survey of all RMT members (something which came about as a result of a resolution passed at RMT’s H&S Advisory conference in 2021).

Over 4,000 members responded to the survey and some of the comments from members were shocking. One wrote of the impact of the pandemic: “It’s affected it pretty badly to be honest and coming out of lockdown seems to have made my mindset worse towards people with how we are being treated as front-line staff.”

Another wrote: “It has been very stressful with constant roster changes etc and confidence knocked in large crowds now social distancing doesn’t exist. Constant concern about what I may be taking home to spread to family and friends.”

Others wrote of anxiety they had never had before and of feeling anxious when dealing with passengers.

Our bus driver members have faced abuse verbally and physically for just trying to do their daily work, leaving them feeling vulnerable and suspicious when people board their bus.

Our maritime members, working offshore with poor internet connections and not being able to contact family, have found it hard mentally; not being allowed off the vessel when in port has led to many members feeling imprisoned — being on the vessel for three months without being allowed to leave.

It was very noticeable from the survey that many members feared for their job security.

My national executive committee (NEC) recognised that when employers threaten job cuts this will impact the mental health of our members.

During the onset of coronavirus in 2020, measures were extremely slow to be brought in to protect traincrew. Masks were at first discouraged and then subsequently various insufficiently protective masks have been supplied by the company. Not having correct PPE caused both anxiety and danger to my members.

The government has been slow to react, slow to put in measures, inconsistent and has broken its own rules: it says one thing and does the opposite. So many deaths could have been prevented with better controls and restrictions.

In the post-Covid scramble by employers to recoup the profits lost during the pandemic, RMT will continue to fight for the health and safety of our members.

Michael Lynch is general secretary of the RMT. www.rmt.org.uk/healthandsafety