Rank: New forum user
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We atomise stainless steel and turn this into powder which causes a dusty environment and we of course provide showers because of this, our HR department have asked a question regarding employer responsibility. Is the employer legally obliged to allow employees to take showers within normal working hours or can we state in company policy that showers are to be taken after their shift ends?
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Rank: Forum user
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When working in lead-acid battery manufacture we had paid showering time. Rationale being that if it was unpaid / in the employee's own time we couldn't insist that they showered - however if we paid them tro shower we could insist that they did.
Never understood why people working with lead wouldn't shower, though. We also provided soap and towels which were processed through the same laundry as the workwear. By the way they got 15mins paid shower time, with departmental finishes staggered so that there wouldn't be huge numbers of people waiting to shower. It all seemed to work well enough, back then.
P.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I am also old school - if it is a dirty industry then part of the paid work is cleaning to go home be it 5 minutes for hand washing or 15 minutes for a shower - otherwise you have been negligent in protecting the worker from exposure to substances. Similarly if there are potential contamination issues with overalls these should go through a laundry service and not the employees domestic washing machine exposing their transport, home and loved ones (just read another report of a Wife's death from asbestos exposure through washing hubby's work wear). A more recent consideration is that employers enforcing activity out of paid hours are creating unpaid overtime which could reduce the employees effective hourly rate below legal minimums leaving the company open to prosecution.
Depending on shift hours even if you took the bold move to pay overtime to encourage showering after shift you may end up with issues regarding the Working Time Directive and rest periods.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I am also old school - if it is a dirty industry then part of the paid work is cleaning to go home be it 5 minutes for hand washing or 15 minutes for a shower - otherwise you have been negligent in protecting the worker from exposure to substances. Similarly if there are potential contamination issues with overalls these should go through a laundry service and not the employees domestic washing machine exposing their transport, home and loved ones (just read another report of a Wife's death from asbestos exposure through washing hubby's work wear). A more recent consideration is that employers enforcing activity out of paid hours are creating unpaid overtime which could reduce the employees effective hourly rate below legal minimums leaving the company open to prosecution.
Depending on shift hours even if you took the bold move to pay overtime to encourage showering after shift you may end up with issues regarding the Working Time Directive and rest periods.
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Rank: New forum user
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I can understand that with Lead toxicity, our powder has traces of Nickel and Ferro-Chrome but they don't get covered from head to toe and we don't insist they shower, we just think they want to shower during working hours as an excuse to clock out bang on time. Steve.
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Rank: Forum user
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If you are asking someone to undertake a task which involves "dirty" work then you are legally required to provide adequate welfare provision for them while they are at work.This means you must provide such facilities unless it is clearly unreasonable in terms of time, trouble, cost and physical difficulty. Showers for such work you describe is not clearly unreasonable. Showers or baths should also be provided where the work is:
- particularly strenuous;
- dirty; or
- results in contamination of the skin by hazardous or offensive materials.
Regulation 21 Washing Facilities see links below, covers this in more detail:
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pUbns/priced/l24.pdf
http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg293.pdf
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Rank: New forum user
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We provide more than adequate welfare facilities as per regulations, the question was, are we legally obliged to allow employees to shower within their paid working hours or tell them that if they wish to have a shower they do this once their shift ends? Steve.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Agree with #5 - you cause the workers to get dirty/contaminated - therefore adequate welfare facilities to allow them to shower etc in work time. Why should employees use their own time to get cleaned up from your company work activities?
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Rank: New forum user
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Agreed from a moral point of view, just asking from a legal one as i know these are sometimes negotiated as part of pay discussions. As an employer you explain your working activities to anyone interested in working for your company and you provide welfare facilities, uniforms, PPE, training and pay etc. Is it unrealistic to expect employees to complete the hours they're payed for?
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Rank: Forum user
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Originally Posted by: sc@atomising.co.uk  I can understand that with Lead toxicity, our powder has traces of Nickel and Ferro-Chrome but they don't get covered from head to toe and we don't insist they shower, we just think they want to shower during working hours as an excuse to clock out bang on time. Steve.
Surely we should all expect to clock out bang on time - no excuses. otherwise we're working overtime be it paid or unpaid?
P.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I suppose a counter argument is why do you provide showers if you feel that the workforce don't actually need to use them ? Whilst not a definitive legal answer, I would say that if they get dirty in work time, then it's reasonable that they're allowed to clean up in work time, and that such cleaning/showering time should count as part of their shift.
What does it say in their contracts ? If this isn't mentioned, but they've been allowed to do it in the past, then it's probably become "custom and practice" anyway, and would be difficult to stop it.
I suppose the legal test case would be to stop them from showering in work time, and see what the HSE say when they visit (following an anonymous phone call in all probability).
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Rank: New forum user
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When we expanded and started taking on new staff it was made clear that all employees would be expected to complete their shifts before cleaning off, but 5 years ago production stopped and redundancies were made and the staff that was left were allowed to wash off and shower early as there was very little work.Work came back sfter 8 months but the washing off early practice wasn't stopped and has continued ever since, now we're getting busier and production is increasing so i was just wondering if we could legally re-instate the previous policy.
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Rank: Super forum user
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They are paid to undertake a task and by the nature of your business the task is dirty which the business acknowldges by providing the requisit welfare facilities, they should therefore provide adequate time to safely complete the task during paid hours.
"the cooking's not finished until the washing up is done".
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Rank: Super forum user
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They are paid to undertake a task and by the nature of your business the task is dirty which the business acknowldges by providing the requisit welfare facilities, they should therefore provide adequate time to safely complete the task during paid hours.
"the cooking's not finished until the washing up is done".
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Rank: Super forum user
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A legal requirement in my opinion. Seems prety clear cut and a basic requirement of risk management. You create the risk, you have a legal duty to manage the risk at all stages - including allowing people to get cleaned up at the expense of the company.
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Rank: Super forum user
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As you work in such a dirty environment then I think it is only right to allow people paid "cleaning up" time as us old timers used to call it. I think it can be argued morally and legally under the Management Regs and Workplace, health, safety and welfare regs and I think you would find it very hard to suggest otherwise. Perhaps some of our ex-mining colleagues could enlighten us with regard to how this was handled at the Pit?
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Rank: Super forum user
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If I’m reading your reply at #11 correctly, you’ve been allowing the workforce to shower in work time for over 4 years now (ie since work picked up again 8 months after redundancies 5 years ago)?
If so, I think there would be a strong “custom and practice” argument as this “perk” (if indeed showering within work time could be considered a perk rather than a right) may by now have become part of your employees working terms and contract, even if this was never your intention.
By that I mean that you could find that your employees claim that the practice is now “an implied term of employment” and cannot therefore be removed without their consent.
You could of course negotiate this with the workforce, but if they refuse, the likelihood is that the “reasonableness” test of their claim could only be determined by an Employment Tribunal.
Only you can decide whether or not it is worth the potential hassle of stopping the practice and risking an ET of course.
Edited by user 12 July 2018 15:29:12(UTC)
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Rank: Super forum user
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Forget custom and practice - If I were an ambulance chaser I smell a nice collective tribunal case for unpaid hours by both existing and former employees over x years the previous policy was in place and interest (court rates 8% p.a.).
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Rank: Super forum user
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Forget custom and practice - If I were an ambulance chaser I smell a nice collective tribunal case for unpaid hours by both existing and former employees over x years the previous policy was in place and interest (court rates 8% p.a.).
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Rank: Super forum user
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I wonder how the lack of interest in allowing employees to wash contamination off, translates into lack of workplace health and safety?
I find that usually there is a general lack of interest...
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Rank: Forum user
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Ok, viewing this as both H&S advisor and HR Manager! Showering is part of the process of maintaining health and safety and it is clearly preferrable that all relevant staff participate and don't leave without doing so. You might (?) argue that a shower is considered PPE and that therefore as the cost of PPE is carried by the organisation and not the individual, so the shower needs to take place before the end of the shift at the companies expence. I doubt anyone would raise a case for having to front the cost of their own PPE (shower) but you never know in these increasingly litiginous times! From an HR perspective there is the issue of custom and practice and also the argument that showering at work after the shift has ended is incurring additional working hours that would be unpaid. Personally I wouldn't want to get into a legal debate over that one - let them finish their shift with a shower and everyone is happy!
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Rank: Super forum user
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No issue with the general argument put forward, but you might argue a shower is part of PPE.....really!!
Read Reg 2 of the PPE regs defining PPE, it refers to hard/physical/actual equipment.provided as PPE. As I'm sure we all understand.
The legal requirement I would suggest fits under 3 h&s regulations
Management Regs - to identify risks and required control measures
COSHH - risk assessment and associated industrial hygiene requirements.
Welfare regs as discussed - to provide welfare facilities
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Rank: Forum user
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Perhaps on Friday struggling to find the right phrase - I'd agree a shower is not PPE, but we were quite firmly informed by an HSE Inspector that "showering is a recognised control measure for lead contamination and it is mangement's job to make the employees shower". When the Site Director asked "how do we do that?" said HSE Inspector replied "That's your problem!" And initially it was quite a problem, even with paid showering time etc - some people don't like being told to do things, perhaps.
Anyway, I think the general consensus is that best thing all round would be to allow showering in company's time.
Have a good weekend all.
P.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Presumably you have to provide Matey shower gel free of charge? Soap being too dangerous if dropped. Not that you should be bending over in a group shower anyway - but maybe that is a story for another time - it was certainly no way to treat a tube of Deep Heat. Joking aside - are these group showers? I can understand men objecting to that.
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Rank: Forum user
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I worked in an environment with a very similar airborne metallic dust hazard, and showering at the end of shift was considered part of the controls in place. As such it was mandatory and, appropriately, was considered part of operators working hours. I would expect that with Ni dust the situation would be the same. The argument being that you can't justify the showers as an effective control if they're an optional "if we have time at the end of the shift" wishy-washy measure.
We required employees to do it so we could fulfil our legal responsibility, therefore they were paid for the time it took to do it.
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Rank: Forum user
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I've worked in two companies where showering 15 minutes before the end of shift was factored into the situation; one was in a CLAWR environment (using lead oxide), and one was in a food-contact plastic masterbatch environment where fine paticle-size coloured pigments were dispensed and handled in a simple mixing process when mixing with polymers and fillers. I'd agree with all respondents that if you get dirty on works time, then you should also get clean on it too. I don't know the legal precedent for this, but you can't really argue against it now from a custom and practice perspective.
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