Posted By David P. Johnson I assume from your post that neither you nor your husband are Safety Practitioners, so I'ver geared my response to be as clear and simple as possible. The best course of action to take would be to raise a formal, written greivance with the Head Office of the employer. The chances are that the poor management is only local, and that if Head Office intervenes the matter will be resolved quickly. Your husband has full legal protection from victimisation from his colleagues and managers once he raises his greivance - so he should not be treated poorly for speaking up about it. If he is, there is action that you are able to take to resolve that, but that would be much later down the line. If you check the ACAS website, they have oodles of advice, and an infoline, to help you do this. http://www.acas.org.uk Make sure you notify them in your letter that if the situation does not improve, you will have no alternative but to make a Protected Disclosure to the Health and Safety Executive. Jus4t the threat of this should see an immense improvement. If however it doesn't, drop me an email, and I'd be happy to advise you on what to do next. Best of luck with this. DJ

Posted By Nina thanks for the responses so far, yes he is a member of the union but the union rep is also the H&S rep too!!

Posted By Malcolm Hogarth I think David has given sound advice and covered everything pretty clearly. This sounds like the same company that I put a work placement into; the placement had an accident (manual handling) but the company refused to report it under RIDDOR as "we do not report RIDDOR"!!. Needless to say I reported it (after telling them that I was going to) as part of my duty to the placement and the company had a visit from the local EHO. I wasn't very popular but I did explain that there was not only a legal duty to report but also a moral one. They no longer take placements from us - suits me fine as I would rather send people into reputable workplaces.

Posted By shaun mckeever With respect to any of your fire problems you can ring your local fire service. They will come and inspect the building and will keep you anonymous. I remember one occasion when I was an inspectiong officer. We received a call about a shop from a well known chain where they were blocking exit routes with christmas stock. A colleague of mine turned up unannounced to inspect the shop and the manager was plainly busy. He said to my colleague after barking a couple of orders to his staff "....and I haven't got time for you"! My colleague advised him that was fine but he was going to organise a prohibition notice to prevent the shop from being used by anyone with immediate effect. The obnoxious store manager suddenly found he did have time for my colleague.