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Unite Says “No” to Workplace Dust
By staff - Unite the Union, August 2019
Unite has worked closely with the TUC to produce guidance to Unite members and other union members about dust in the workplace. Unite and the TUC have consistently called for a review of dust exposure levels in line with recommendations from the trade union side of the now disbanded Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances (ACTS), based on scientific evidence from the ACTS Scientific Committee, WATCH (also disbanded).
Evidence shows that dust is one of the biggest workplace killers and several thousands of workers are dying as a result of dust exposure. Many of these deaths are due to inadequate enforcement of existing standards, but others are the result of inadequate maximum exposure levels. Too many Unite members, and workers in general, are being exposed to dangerous levels of dust at work. The current dust standards are not good enough and there is strong scientific evidence to prove it.
The HSE has accepted some of the problems with dust, although senior members of the HSE have refused to back a statement of the problem, it was left to the now-defunct Advisory Committee on Toxic Substances to publish a statement as an Annex to the minutes of its meeting in May 2014.
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