The General Workers’ Union carried out a study regarding health and safety representatives at different workplaces. The study revealed that representatives get most of their support from the trade union to which they are affiliated. Furthermore, the study indicated that not all representatives receive health and safety training, and that they are not always consulted by management.
Background and methodology
The research project ‘Health and safety representatives at the workplace’ (Ir-rapprezentanti tas-Sahha u Sigurta’ fuq il-post tax-xoghol), presented by the General Workers’ Union (GWU) in July 2007, focused on aspects, such as: identifying the procedures through which health and safety representatives are elected; the way these representatives obtain the required information to carry out their duties; the training they receive; and the difficulties they face in relation to their role. GWU initiated the project because information is scarce concerning the situation of health and safety representatives at the workplace in Malta.
In terms of methodology, questionnaires were sent to randomly chosen health and safety representatives, who were then requested to return the completed questionnaire by mail to maintain confidentiality. The response rate was very high, thus reflecting the interest in the research and the commitment of the representatives.
Profile of representatives
As much as 95.7% of the health and safety representatives are men. If the percentage of female employees is taken into account, which currently stands at about 30%, only 4.3% of women occupy a health and safety representative role. This gender division can be traced back to the education system, where girls are not encouraged enough from an early age to take up such positions. Another reason for the lack of female representatives could be related to work-life balance issues, as women may lack the time for such responsibilities.
In terms of age, more than half of the population of representatives – at 56.5% – is made up of older men aged between 45 and 65 years, of whom 78% have been working with their respective organisations for over 10 years. Only 4.3% of representatives were under the age of 25 years, while 17.4% belonged to the 25–34 age group and 21.7% were aged between 35 and 44 years. These findings reveal that the younger generation tend not to take up positions such as worker representatives and shop stewards at the workplace. Length of service and level of experience appear to increase the readiness of employees to take on such roles.
The majority of health and safety representatives, amounting to 65%, were employed in the private sector. It is worthwhile noting that representatives in the private sector showed greater awareness of the responsibilities associated with their role and demonstrated more enthusiasm for the position than their counterparts in the public sector. This outcome could be related to the possibility of more hazards due to production targets and fast procedures in the private sector, which may increase the incidence of occupational risks and dangers at the workplace.
Election procedures and training
Some 28% of the health and safety representatives were elected by the employees while the same proportion of representatives was selected by company management; a further 44% were elected by some other procedure, which was not reported in the study. Only 57% of representatives were members of the Health and Safety Committee within a company.
In such a specialised field such as health and safety at the workplace, training is an important issue. The research revealed that 68% of health and safety representatives did get some sort of training; among this group, 50% of representatives received training in-house from their organisation; another 44% of representatives got training from GWU, while 25% received training elsewhere. This means that a fifth of the sample received training from more than one institution. Some 88% of representatives reported that the training had been very useful and helpful to them. Those representatives who did not receive any training at all reported that this was due to their family responsibilities and other work matters that took precedence over any workplace health and safety training.
Consultation and support
Company management does not always consult health and safety representatives, and in general representatives are not satisfied with how much they are being consulted on issues affecting workers. Similar percentages of representatives, amounting to about 33%, stated that they were properly consulted by management, that they were not consulted at all, or that they were only consulted occasionally. Two thirds of the sample of workers reported that they received most support from their trade union, while about a fifth said that they received support from more than one organisation, for example also from the Maltese Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA).
Christine Farrugia and Manwel Debono, Centre for Labour Studies