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Recognise stress-related illness as an industrial injury

Ensure stricter control and management of stress at work

Recognise bullying as a serious hazard at work, which employers have a duty to prevent

Job security and the rights of employees have been eroded in favour of the business and enterprise. Contract culture, short term and temporary contracts, zero hours contracts, casualisation, the conversion of public services into businesses with fewer workers doing the same amount of work, and more lone working, has changed the face of employment. Coercive management practices flourish as pressure increases to cut costs, meet targets and do the same or more work with many fewer staff. This has led to an unacceptable rise in the number of workers reporting stress-related problems. Reported cases of bullying are up and many pieces of research show a great increase in the number of employees suffering mental illness through work-related stress - the latest research reveals that one in five workers feel they are under intolerable stress at work.

The Hazards Campaign demands legislation which will clearly identify stress-related illness as an industrial injury for the purpose of sickness benefits. Factors leading to stress and stress-related illness should be explicitly included in risk assessments, under the Management if Health and Safety at Work Regulations, or specific new 'Stress at Work Regulations' , which must include management style, practice and work organisation. This will involve specifying a set of criteria on factors which cause stress such as hours of work, pressure of work, shift, temporary, casual work, pace of work and management style. The Hazards Campaign demands new separate regulations on preventing stress at work rather than guidance or an ACOP, and for the rights of people at work to be treated with dignity and respect, not to be bullied or abused by employers or managers, to be explicitly stated in these new regulations.

Reduce working hours

Since the original Charter was written, the Labour Government has ratified the Social Chapter and implemented the Working Hours Directive - achieving two of the Hazards Campaign's demands. However, workers in the UK continue to work longer hours than most of the rest of Europe, which contributes enormously to the increase in stress that workers are experiencing. The argument of increased competitiveness through poorer working conditions enjoys neither moral or economic justification. The Hazards Campaign seeks a strengthening of the legislation on working hours and shift work including reducing the opt-outs and improving the enforcement arrangements. But essentially the Hazards Campaign calls for a recognition of the seriously damaging effects of the long hours culture on workers health and on children and communities and demands urgent action on reducing working hours.