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#1 Posted : 30 December 2003 21:18:00(UTC)
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Posted By Iain I was wondering how the group feels about Safety Advisors employed by management also being TU Safety Reps, can it work?? Iain
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#2 Posted : 30 December 2003 21:47:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ken Taylor Yes - but it can also go very wrong!
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#3 Posted : 30 December 2003 22:23:00(UTC)
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Posted By Mike Miller Safety reps make good safety advisors. It makes for very good grounding in the profession. However you cannot be faithful to two firms. You will probably have to make your mind up on this one, (cloth cap and muffler or white collar) Mike
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#4 Posted : 31 December 2003 09:19:00(UTC)
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Posted By Chris Abbott I don't think that as a Union Rep & a Management appointed Safety Advisor you can be objective enough. Don't get me wrong, some of my friends who were TU Reps went on to become very competent Safety Advisors - and they found their new rolls to be very different and actually less restrictive then when they were TU Reps. In my last firm we had 1 Safety Director, 2 Safety managers and 8 Safety Advisors - alongside this, 30 TU Reps and 25 RoES. It was a big place. My experience as Chair of the RoES was that the Advisors and Reps worked well together, but the Advisors were very much centred on an impartial viewpoint, whereas the Reps were less so, given that they obviously supported and represented the Employee and did so to the point of nothing else. I am now an Advisor and I do not believe that it would be possible for me to perform both this roll, and my previous roll. They are very different - goals are the same - but the background activities are different. I was always involved in Accident Investigations, inspections, documentations to a small degree... etc etc as a Rep, but as an Advisor, I'm aware of so much more going on in the background and I feel that this additional knowledge makes me less impartial then before. Sorry about the length of my reply! Chris
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#5 Posted : 31 December 2003 16:17:00(UTC)
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Posted By Ian Waldram One question no one seems to have considered is what added advantage there would be for an existing Advisor to be officially appointed as a Rep? Normally the reason for doing so is to have access to management, Inspectors, documents, Safety Committee, etc. Doesn't the Advisor already have these? Also isn't the Advisor a natural route for employees to take if they have queries or concerns which they don't feel are being adequately addressed by their line management. When I was in the position many years ago of being potentially appointed as H&S Rep for a group of white-collar employees, we decided not to bother with the bureacracy as it would make no difference at all (I was still the Rep in relation to general employment issues and 'negotiations'). Clearly, it's a question as to whether the group being represented actually have confidence in the Advisor as being able to understand where they are coming from and speak on their behalf. I wouldn't normally expect an Advisor to be the only Rep, but can't see too many issues if s/he is one among several.
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#6 Posted : 31 December 2003 16:30:00(UTC)
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Posted By John H Are we saying in this thread then that different safety representatives have different values over the health and safety of the emploeeys?
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