FIREFIGHTER WINS HUMAN RIGHTS CASE
A firefighter who was dismissed for asking colleagues if the Greater Manchester Fire Service' ‘Calcot' reclining chairs were hurting their backs has secured an out-of-court settlement of £80,000.

Christopher Bennett sent an email about the Service's insistence that he used the chair that was aggravating a back condition while he worked on nightshifts. He was dismissed for gross misconduct and lost an appeal. An employment tribunal found that his right to freedom of expression under the Human Rights Act had been breached and that his dismissal was unfair.

Mr Bennett had asked the Service if he could use his own rest mattress after the Calcot chairs replaced the beds used by firefighters on night shifts. He said that the Service had a duty under the Disability Discrimination Act to make reasonable adjustments by allowing him to do so. The Service told him to use the chairs or rest on the benches in the snooker room.

RIGHT TO REQUEST TIME TO TRAIN UNDER QUESTION
The Government is consulting on the continued right to request time to take up relevant training for workers in businesses with more than 250 employees which came into effect from 6 April 2010. The current plans are that the right will be extended to small and medium businesses from April 2011.

As the consultation is part of the overall review of all regulations in a bid to reduce burdens on business there must be significant doubt on whether the right will remain.

There is a shorter consultation period to allow all representations to be made before the deadline for submissions to the next meeting of the Reducing Regulation Committee.

The consultation is available from www.bis.gov.uk/time-to-train

WORKPLACE HEALTH PROMOTION
Workplace Health Promotion (WHP) leads to better health, reduced absenteeism, enhanced motivation, and improved productivity according to the European Health and Safety Agency. The Agency says every Euro invested in WH WH WHP leads to a return on investment of between €2.5-4.8.

The Agency has launched a new web portal on WHP at http://osha.europa.eu/en/topics/whp This includes two new factsheets that provide an overview and advice to employers and workers. This ranges from ways to create a supportive working environment to providing information, ideas and encouragement on health matters, such as giving up smoking.

AGEING PLANT RESEARCH
Ageing plant is a significant issue according to an HSE Research  Report. It estimates that between 1996 and 2008 there have been 173 loss of containment incidents reported in RIDDOR  that can be attributable to ageing plant. This represents 5.5 per cent of all loss of containment events. The real figure could be higher as the limited information provided in RIDDOR  about the underlying causes means that it is difficult to identify which events may be age related.

Across Europe, between 1980 and 2006, it is estimated that there have been 96 incidents reported in the MARS database relating to major accident potential loss of containment which are estimated to be due to ageing plant. As the MARS data provides the more detailed and comprehensive insight into the incidents and causal factors and is specifically related to potential major accident hazard events, this is considered to represent a more realistic indication of the extent and severity of ageing plant and its contribution to major accidents.

Copies of RR823: ‘Plant Ageing Study - Phase 1 report' can be obtained from www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrhtm/rr823.htm

EUROPEAN WORKING TIME
Average agreed weekly hours rose very slightly from 38.6 in 2008 to 38.7 in 2009 across EU Member States, according to the annual report on working time developments and trends from Eurofound's European Industrial Relations Observatory (EIRO).

While agreed working time remains stable, and has done so for almost a decade, the widespread use of short-time work across the EU in 2009 has caused a downward tendency of actual working hours. W Working time differences between all EU Member States remain large.

The most prominent working time issue in 2009 was the use of short-time work as a means of responding to falling demand during the recession and preventing redundancies. Short-time work was used extensively in most countries, and was an issue for collective bargaining in many cases.

Overall, the EU's longest hours are in Hungary, Bulgaria, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland and Romania, while the shortest are in France, Denmark, Sweden, Germany and Italy.

The full report is available from: www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/studies/tn1004039s/tn1004039s.htm

WORKING ABSENCE PATTERNS
Average rates of absence across Europe are between 3 per cent and 6 per cent of working time and the cost is estimated to be about 2.5 per cent of GDP, according to a separate report from Eurofound on the patterns of absenteeism in the 27 EU Member States and Norway.

The most common causes of absence are health problems, although broader issues such as monotony and work-related stress are also mentioned in some countries.

The study addresses patterns of absenteeism in the EU and Norway, the costs involved, policies for dealing with absence and general developments in relation to promoting health and well-being.

The report is available at: www.eurofound.europa.eu/eiro/studies/tn1004039s/tn1004039s.htm

ONLINE ROAD SAFETY LIBRARY
Road safety charity Brake has launched a Road Safety Library, an online resource with free access for anyone with an interest in road safety.

Information is available across the site on a wide variety of topics, from driver distraction, to speed enforcement, to fleet safety. The three main sections of the site will focus on:

• a research library containing research, data and reports on a range of road safety topics;
• road safety initiatives by governments, including international case studies; and
• education schemes from various agencies worldwide.
  

The new Road Safety Library is accessible at: www.roadsafetylibrary.org

FLEETS NOT RECHECKING DRIVING LICENCES
One in five fleets is failing to regularly recheck driving licences after carrying out an initial check, according to software company CFC S CFC Solutions.

Advice from the Association of Car Fleet Operators is to recheck licences every six months to see if the status of their drivers has changed - notably by gathering more penalty points.

CFC says the frequency of driving licence rechecks should be made based on how many points a driver has on their licence.

‘ONE-IN ONE-OUT' STARTS
From 1 September 2010, the Government's ‘One-in, One-out' system starts. This will require ministers seeking to introduce new regulations which impose costs on business or the third sector to identify current regulations with an equivalent value that can
be removed.

The Government has also said that it will engage earlier in the Brussels policy process; take strong cross Government negotiating lines; and work to end ‘gold-plating' of EU regulations to avoid British business being put at a competitive disadvantage to other European-based companies when regulations are transposed.

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