Health and Safety information

To: The Secretary
ALL BRANCHES
REGIONAL COUNCILS

HEALTH AND SAFETY INFORMATION

Dear Colleague

Please see below information on health and safety meetings and research which I hope will be of interest to you and your members.

1)A meeting hosted by Hazards Campaign to launch award winning ergonomist, Karen Messing’s latest book: “Bent out of Shape- Shame, Solidarity, and Women’s Bodies at Work”.

Tuesday 7th September

6pm.

Karen is an international expert, she has researched and written books and papers, worked with Canadian Trade Unions for decades about women’s health and safety.

Karen Messing will be in conversation with Caroline Criado Pirez - author of Invisible Women, Shavanah Taj General Secretary Wales TUC and Hilda Palmer FACK/Hazards Campaign

Register:
https://us02web.zoom.us/.../tZIlduutrzwrHNOOwYR59I4HZCgsw...


2) Transport Workers and Covid-19 Update Zoom online

Wednesday 22 Sep 2021

5-7pm

Organised by the TUC LESE (London East and South East) Transport Industries Network this meeting will discuss what unions can do to make workplaces safer for transport workers and transport users. This meeting is designed for trade union officers, reps, activists, organisers and members in the transport sector.

Meeting Joint Chairs:
Collette Gibson, ASLEF and Roger Sutton, GLATUC
Guest Speakers include:
Rob Miguel, Unite National Health & Safety Officer
Dan Shears, GMB Senior Health & Safety Officer
Eddie Dempsey, RMT Regional Officer

You can register for the meeting here: lese@tuc.org.uk

3) Shifts ‘significantly associated’ with heart problems
Information from TUC relates to outcomes of recent research which shows that long-term night shifts are “significantly associated” with heart-related health problems in UK workers, according to a new study. Researchers from China, Hong Kong, the USA and Sweden examined UK data and found working late hours was linked with irregular and fast heart rate, with women potentially at greater risk. Working night shifts also increased the risk of coronary heart disease (CHD), according to the paper published in the European Heart Journal.

Researchers have previously looked how night shift work impacts health (Risks 891), including a 2018 study finding an increased risk of CHD from rotating shift patterns. The authors of the latest study say they believe it is the first of its kind to test the association between night shift work and atrial fibrillation (AF) - a heart condition causing an irregular and often abnormally fast heart rate.

The study - which used information from 283,657 people in the UK Biobank database - said they found “both current and lifetime night shift exposure were significantly associated” with a risk of atrial fibrillation regardless of genetics. The findings suggested that among people who worked an average of between three and eight night shifts a month for 10 years or more, the risk increased to 22 per cent compared with daytime workers. Previous research has also found women who worked night shifts had an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, breast cancer (Risks 958), asthma (Risks 974) and faced a greater risk of miscarriage (Risks 891). Night shifts have also been linked to a higher risk of road traffic accidents while travelling home from a shift (Risks 808).

Ningjian Wang and others. Long-term night shift work is associated with the risk of atrial fibrillation and coronary heart disease, European Heart Journal, 2021;, ehab505. Published 10 August 2021. https://doi.org/10.1093/eurheartj/ehab505. The Independent.

Yours sincerely

Michael Lynch
General Secretary