50th Anniversary of AAA – address by Kathy Jenkins, Scottish Hazards, 19 September 2025.
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Kathy Jenkins, Scottish Hazards
I am speaking from Scottish Hazards, which is also a part of the UK Hazards Campaign. We campaign for improved Health & Safety nationally and throughout the world. Scottish Hazards is a charity which provides advice, support and representation to non-unionised workers (always encouraging them to join a union). We also support families who have lost loved ones through work-related injury or ill health.
The timing of your anniversary gathering is good, as two weeks ago the UK 2025 Hazards Conference brought together 250 delegates – almost all trade union H&S representatives.
In the time I have I want to highlight some of the major issues facing workers in the UK. I know from earlier discussion, that many of these are similar to those facing you in Denmark. And I want to give you examples of some action being taken to address these:
- Low union membership: Only about 30% of workers in the UK are unionised. This leaves us weak in many ways. Active recruitment is going on.
- We have high levels of precarious work: – zero hour contracts, no guaranteed hours contracts, low paid self employment. These are particularly high in: the gig economy, social care, call centres, hospitality, the arts There is grassroots and trade union work being done to organise and unionise these workers, eg Better Than Zero Campaign BetterThanZero and Unite Hospitality Unite in hospitality and the Scottish Artist’s Union Fair Work representatives.
- We suffer from a lack of adequate enforcement: The Health and Safety Executive, our enforcement body, has been cut by 50% since 2010. It was originally designed as a tripartite body- government, employers and trade unions. This has broken down. This greatly increases the need for active TU H&S representatives.
- AI and its impact on working conditions: Some workers, eg in distribution centres such as Amazon, are minutely electronically monitored, given instructions through AI and getting shifts sometimes depends on the previous day’s productivity. This leads to intensification of work and increased ill health. Demands are being made for human oversight and full consultation with unions
- Work related stress levels are going up:
Work related stress is now the largest cause of work related ill health. There are good risk assessment tools and advice, but there is no enforcement. There is good work going on by H&S reps to highlight and reduce the work related causes of stress. Campaigns include the UCU (University and Colleges Union) national campaign tackling workload UCU – Workload campaign, and the RCN (Royal College of Nursing ) campaign of support for its members Managing stress | Royal College of Nursing - Sexual harassment at work: This is now finally being recognised as a huge issue, including within the TU movement. 1 in 3 workers report having experienced sexual harassment, mainly women, but some men as well. A major problem is the HSE will not recognise this as a H&S issue and refuses to enforce on it. They give responsibility to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), but they do not enforce and have also been cut by over 50% in recent years. There is a cross union, cross sector campaign building – End not Defend End Not Defend – Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU)
- Increasing violence and aggression aimed at workers: particularly in public sector, transport and retail There are active TU campaigns. For example, the RMT (Railway, Maritime and Transport union) has an active campaign to get rid of lone working Transport workers willing to take industrial action over violence against staff | Morning Star and USDAW (Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers) to address violence against retail workers USDAW – Freedom From Fear Campaign. In Scotland, action by the Scottish Trade Union Congress in the 2000’s led to Scottish Legislation to protect emergency service workers. STUC project tackles violence | TUC We are trying to reinvigorate this campaign.
- Most workers do not have access to Occupational Health Services: and Scotland has a poor record on job retention, rehabilitation and return to work. Scottish Hazards is working with others, including the Society of Occupational Medicine, to press the Scottish Government to develop a national OH service within the National Health Service. In doing this, we are drawing heavily on the information we gained from the EWHN sub group on OH Services. We are also encouraging TU reps to support non clinical occupational health interventions, eg flexible working, reasonable adjustments, tending and befriending fellow workers.
- Climate change/air pollution/ Toxics Use Reduction : Unions are now taking action on these issues. An example is TUCAN – the Trade Union Clean Air Network TUCAN – Greener Jobs Alliance. Another is the firefighters DECON campaign DECON: Fire Contaminants | Campaign– linking with others internationally. In Scotland we are pressing the Scottish Government to adopt a Toxics Use Reduction Strategy similar to that in the state of Massachusetts. About Us – TURI
European Work Hazards Network (EWHN)
The most recent EWHN conferences brought together: Leeds (2010) 190 delegates; Bologna (2013) 130 delegates; Rotterdam (2016) 87 delegates and Copenhagen (2018) 55 delegates. As can be seen, attendance was falling due to a number of factors as discussed by Gerhard Elsigan.
As Gerhard said, there were a number of EWHN sub groups. The one which I was most involved in was that on Occupational Health Services. Through it I learned a huge amount about the different OH services throughout Europe. We definitely then saw Denmark as the gold standard!
I want to say something about the internation links we forged through EWHN. For the conferences listed above, we brought delegates from grassroots organisations in China, Korea, Japan, India, Egypt, South Africa, Mexico, Brazil and the USA. This greatly enriched our discussion and learning.
We also sent delegates to ANROEV conferences (Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims).
At least in Scotland, some of these links continue.
Scottish Hazards is an associate member of ANROEV– Asian Network for the Rights of Occupational and Environmental Victims
We are still in touch with NATIONAL COSH – National Council for Occupational Safety and Health
We are still in contact with GOOD ELECTRONICS, through some of the founders, Ted Smith and Amanda Hawes.
We are associate members of ELECTRONICS WATCH which we came upon through Omana George who had been a delegate from Asia.
We are in contact with SOLIDARITY CENTRE, USA through Sanjiv Pandita, another delegate from Asia.
We worked with some of these organisations to put together an exhibition to mark the 40th Anniversary of the Bhopal Gas Disaster. Bhopal 40th Anniversary – Scottish Hazards
We had hoped to bring together a small number of international delegates at the Copenhagen conference in 2018 to talk about developing a Global Network of Activists, however, we were unable to raise the funding to do this.
This is the Closing Statement from the 2013 EWHN conference in Bologna
- We pledge to work individually and collectively to take and support actions to develop ‘good work’: work that is safe, meaningful, socially just and environmentally sustainable; work that enables workers to develop skills and knowledge and have a reasonable life/work balance; work where workers are treated with dignity and respect. We reaffirm the statements which followed the 2010 Leeds EWHN and Anroev conferences
- *We affirm that we will continue to develop solidarity with working people throughout the world to resist the transfer of risk from one country to another. Key campaigns will include: asbestos, solvents and the semiconductor industry, waste dumping, silica, benzene and solidarity with Bhopal in the 30th anniversary year (2014);
- We will work to support the self organisation of victims and workers. This includes enabling workers and communities to do their own research; to understand and use science and begin to shift the power balance in terms of knowledge.
Some specific actions which we will work to address in the coming two years:
- Continue work toward the development of a global grassroots occupational and environmental health network.
- Expand EWHN to include more European countries.
- Take concrete steps to identify and if necessary create some good lay information and training resources.
- Support a call by world wide trade union and activist groups to call on Union Carbide/Dow Chemical to drop their claim that the Bhopal gas explosion was caused by a disgruntled worker, and to stop their refusal to share information on the medical consequences of the disaster by 2014, the 30th anniversary of the disaster.
And this is from the International Workshop at the 2016 Conference in Rotterdam
- Keep building a Global Grassroots Occupational and Environmental Health network – empowering victims, workers, communities
- support existing international solidarity campaigns examples: asbestos, semiconductor industry (Samsung), oil (Shell), mercury, garment workers /sweatshops/maquiladoras, humidifiers, agricultural workers, metal workers, International Workers Memorial Day, banning unsustainable technologies .
- build links between workplace and environmental campaigns – at workplace, local, national and international levels examples: Bhopal, Kodaikanal
- critical thought about consumer campaigns, fair-trade, CSR (new name: corporate social irresponsibility!) – lifecycle thinking/cradle to cradle/cradle to grave .
- through our network(s), link grassroots organisation and work with union, national and international structures examples: TTIP, Chemicals Directive Do this through: support for victims/ workers/ families (including support on compensation and prosecution), organising, building self organisation, providing information in different forms, training, advocacy, research…..
Contribution by Gerhard Elsigan, Austria
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Gerhard Elsigan’s contribution from Austria reflects on 50 years of occupational health and safety development in Europe. He describes the evolution of OHS institutions, the rise of the European Work Hazards Network (EWHN), and the crucial role of AAA in building cooperation and sharing knowledge across borders.
Elsigan traces how post-war bureaucratic systems struggled to adapt to new realities and how grassroots initiatives and NGOs like AAA helped bridge the gap between workers and research. He highlights projects such as SUBSPRINT (addressing solvent exposure) and stresses the value of European cooperation, transparency and trust built through EWHN.
His conclusion: much of what activists once demanded is now mainstream, but organisations like AAA remain essential to push forward new approaches and keep occupational health alive as a social and political priority.