NEWS RELEASE Wednesday, 03 November 2004 For Immediate Release
STUC SUPPORTS HSE STRESS MANAGEMENT STANDARDS The Scottish Trades Union Congress has announced its support for the new HSE Stress Management Standards launched today (3 November 2004) to coincide with stress awareness day.
Ian Tasker, STUC Assistant Secretary responsible for Health and Safety said,
"The figures announced, only yesterday, following a TUC survey of union health and safety representatives showed that exposure to workplace stress has increased in the last eight years ".
"For too long employers have refused to take the issue of work related stress seriously or argued that they do not have the tools to assess the risk to their workers. These standards will provide employers with a number of desired states to be met in specific work related areas".
"Although the STUC recognise that these standards fall short of specific legislation employers will no longer make this claim and we will be working with our affiliates and the HSE to ensure that employers implement these standards that can go a long way to improving the situation. However, this will only happen if employers use the standards and do not continue to ignore this issue".
"We view these standards as the last chance for employers to tackle the problem, preferably, with the co-operation of trade unions. If they fail to take this opportunity then, despite the inevitable protestations from the de-regulation lobby, we feel that the Government will have no alternative to legislate to protect workers from exposure to work related stress".
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Tel: 0141 337 8100 / Fax: 0141 337 8101 www.stuc.org.uk
For further information: Contact Ian Tasker