The role of union health and safety representatives during the COVID‐19 pandemic: A case study of the UK food processing, distribution, and retail sectors

• Published date: 01 July 2022
• Author: Minjie Cai,Sian Moore,Chris Ball,Matt Flynn,Ken Mulkearn
• Date: 01 July 2022
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/irj.12377

DOI: 10.1111/irj.12377

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

The role of union health and safety

representatives during the COVID‐19

pandemic: A case study of the UK food

processing, distribution, and retail sectors

Minjie Cai

1

|Sian Moore

1

|Chris Ball

1

|Matt Flynn

2

|

Ken Mulkearn

3

1

Centre for Research on Employment and Work, University of Greenwich, London, UK

2

Centre for Research into the Older Workforce, University of Hull, Hull, UK

3

Incomes Data Research, London, UK

Correspondence

Minjie Cai, Centre for Research

on Employment and Work, University

of Greenwich, London, UK.

Email: m.cai@gre.ac.uk

Funding information

Trade Union Congress

Abstract

This article highlights the weakness of the UK's

occupational health and safety infrastructure

exposed by the COVID‐19 pandemic. Utilising a

political economy perspective, it captures the critical

role of workplace union safety representatives in

mitigating risk and contesting the expropriation of

health and recommodification of labour, specifically

inadequate sick pay.

1|INTRODUCTION

COVID‐19 has laid bare UK workplace health and safety and revitalised occupational

health and safety (OHS) as an arena for conflict. This article explores OHS in the food

production, distribution and retail sectors during the pandemic. Specifically, it examines

the joint regulation of OHS in the workplace and the role that union health and safety (HS)

representatives have played. The article asks how far the pandemic has invigorated existing

structures of OHS representation. Echoing the political economy perspective advocated

by Nichols (1997), this study points to the deregulation of workplace OHS and extends

Ind. Relat. 2022;53:390–407.390

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© 2022 The Authors. Industrial Relations Journal published by Brian Towers (BRITOW) and John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Navarro's (1982) concept of the relative expropriation of health in a different historical

and epidemiological moment. The paper suggests that, for frontline workers, COVID‐19

exposed the implications of the recommodification of labour over the past decades,

specifically limitations on access to occupational and statutory sick pay (SSP). It highlights

how union HS representatives contested sickness and absence policies to prevent infection

at the workplace, suggesting that recommodification is a process and also the site of

struggle.

The prepandemic OHS literature provided consensus on the positive impact of union

presence and participation over exposure to risk at work (Frick, 2011; Robinson &

Smallman, 2013). In particular, awareness of OHS representation makes a difference in self‐

reported preventive action by workers (Ollé‐Espluga et al., 2015). However, the absence of

union representation in the UK's OHS system has facilitated ‘a structure of vulnerability’

(Nichol, 1997, p. 154). The last Workplace Employment Relations Survey (WERS) reported that

two‐thirds (66%) of UK workplaces had adopted direct methods of OHS representation (van

Wanrooy et al., 2013). Evidence also suggested that UK managers did not differentiate between

union and non‐union arrangements in their assessment of OHS representation effectiveness

(Bryson, 2016), despite that historically the latter have fewer resources and lack independence

(Walters, 1983). During the pandemic, UK employers were criticised for prioritising financial

interests over labour protection while dismissing concerns raised by union HS representatives

(Watterson, 2020).

OHS research has primarily focused on the sectors with frequent exposure to industrial

injuries (Fan et al., 2020), paying limited attention to the food sector that was critical in the

pandemic. Based on seven organisational case studies and a survey of 121 managers in the food

sector, this article draws on multiple conceptual lenses from the sociology of work, political

economy, and the organisational and labour process literature to examine OHS representation

and processes at the workplace level. It starts by describing the UK OHS representation system

and conceptualising workplace HS. It then sets out research methods before outlining key

findings including on representation structures and the concrete role played by HS

representatives, especially over sick pay and absence. In highlighting the importance of

sick pay in risk prevention, it suggests the implications of labour recommodification in global

health crises.

2|THE UK OHS REPRESENTATION SYSTEM

The UK adopts a tripartite system of OHS representation that gives unions the right to appoint

HS representatives while permitting employers to directly consult with workers in establish-

ments without recognised unions. The Safety Representatives and Safety Committees

Regulations stipulate that union HS representatives should represent all workers in the

establishment where the union is recognised, regardless of whether the workers are union

members. They require employers that recognise unions to form a joint HS committee if

requested by two or more union HS representatives. Despite such legal provisions, the

legitimisation of direct methods means consultation may be limited to the provision of

information (Nichols & Walters, 2009). WERS 2004 revealed that very few employers involved

workers in meaningful OHS consultation (Robinson & Smallman, 2013).

The effectiveness of OHS representation is subject to the mechanisms of legal enforcement

and the power dynamics of employment relations (James, 2009). Regulatory frameworks that

ROLE OF UNION HEALTH AND SAFETY REPRESENTATIVES DURING COVID‐19

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