Received from: ASLEF
Congress recognises the valuable work carried out by the TUC and its affiliates to improve conditions at work, making it safer and healthier for staff.
Congress notes that there’s no law for minimum or maximum temperatures at work. An approved code of practice specifies a minimum, but not a maximum, and loopholes and exemptions mean that this very weak safeguard fails to protect many workers.
Congress believes that health and safety legislation protects not only people at work, but others too, especially in safety critical industries. In excessively hot cabs, train drivers can find their ability to focus and concentrate affected, creating a health and safety concern for them, their passengers, and other railway staff too.
Congress understands that a maximum temperature for some work settings or industries may prove impracticable or impossible, but this should not be a bar to stipulating a maximum temperature at work where this can be achieved. Where it cannot be achieved, a legal obligation should still require employers to introduce mitigation to keep employees safe.
Congress calls on the General Council to:
i. campaign for a legal maximum temperature of 26 degrees at work where this is reasonably practicable, and where not, to still require employers to take all reasonably practicable measures to reduce the temperature at work, and to provide further mitigating measures to reduce the risk of harm from workers continued exposure to high temperatures
ii. fully support ASLEF’s Better Driving Cabs campaign which aims to improve the driving conditions for our members.
ASLEF