Posted By Richard Like many of us I am the secretary of our Safety Committee. At a recent meeting I also took the chair as the regular chair was missing. During this meeting I made some adverse comments about senior management's dedication to health and safety, which I duly recorded in the minutes. I have now been told that this was the wrong forum for such a complaint (which I don't agree with anyway) and these comments should be removed. My view is that wrong forum or not, these comments were made at the meeting, and must therefore appear in the minutes. I have refused to remove them. Comments please. I have eighteen months to retirement so am not too bothered about fallout! Richard

Posted By Diane Warne Richard, Another point - what does your organisation see as the function of minutes? Generally they are supposed to be a true record of what was said at the meeting. So if something appears in the minutes that is inaccurate, the members have a right to have it removed. If it's accurate however, it should stay in, unless it was agreed at the meeting that the comments were off-the-record. It's very dangerous to start letting people manipulating minutes of meetings because they don't want things that were said (ON the record) to be recorded. The ultimate decision, of course, rests with..... the Chairman! Regards Diane

Posted By Stuart Nagle Richard. I admire your tenacity in refusing to have these matters removed form the minutes, no doubt reinforced by your imminent retirement !! I would think that the 'comments' (made by management perhaps?)to which you refer on the removal of the comments is probably due to two things; a) hitting a raw nerve, and b) being put in a place (the minutes of an open meeting) where those comments are available to a wider audience and a response was not able to be made in defence or argument !! Looking at it from the management point of view, I would hazard to guess that the 'Chair' you were standing in for, probably has recourse to a higher level 'Management' meeting, which I would assume is judged to be where the management (from their prospective) feels the issue should have been raised/discussed. Whilst I am not one for sweeping matters under the carpet myself, I also know, as a senior officer in my company, that there are issues that are best discussed, and often best results obtained, when discussed in the right forum. In all cases, 'opinions' - if this was the case - are best kept as that and such comments made off the record at any meeting where the level of meeting or committee does not have either the remit, or perhaps the power to action those items. Perhaps the issue may have been best served by reporting that there were (whatever)concerns, and asking for the matter to be tabled for a (more senior) management meeting to review, where perhaps you may have been invited to further quanitify the issues/matters of concern raised. I know it's all politics, but this is why in most companies there is a hierachy and structure to management, and as you rightly know by your reference to retirement, no one likes people to step outside this structure when it is considered that there is a method/forum for dealing with such issues. I hope you able to review and reflect upon the matters/issues and resolve them, but perhaps consider the wider implications and the steps, perhaps, that may have been the right/prefered route to bringing the issues into a discussion/meeting in order that they could be dealt with without causing conflict (and reducing stress of course). Good luck... Stuart Nagle

Posted By Richard Points accepted. However, the matters referred to have been ongoing since September 1999, and have been constantly referred to management, both by the Committee and by outside accreditation bodies to which we are subject. The same statement was also made by me at the June meeting last year, under the normal chairman, and was accepted and published!! I am not deliberately bloody minded, and have exhausted the normal channels of communication. I was hoping a bit of in house publicity might get results, and also head off a formal complaint to HSE which some members of staff (not me - never awaken a sleeping tiger!)have postulated. Thanks for the responses, the struggle continues Peace, Brothers (and Sisters)! Richard