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The TUC has today (Monday 28th April) called on UK employers to give better occupational health assistance to the two million employees who every year believe they have become ill as a result of their jobs.
Over the next year, the TUC hopes that around 15,000 workplace safety reps can be trained using the new educational workbook, Occupational Health: Dealing with the Issues. The reps will be able to use the guide to assess the extent of ill health in their workplaces and work with their employers to find the best ways of making the business a healthier place to work. The TUC workbook says that apart from the huge personal cost to individuals when they become ill as a result of their work, 175 million working days were lost as a result of sickness absence in 2006, costing firms £650 per poorly employee.
He added: “Using this workbook, union reps can learn about all the aspects of occupational health. Then they can use it to encourage their employers to do much more to make employees feel they are getting a decent level of support from work when they are ill and again when they are on the road towards a full recovery.” Source: TUC press release
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To coincide with Workers' Memorial Day - which this year focuses on good occupational health for all workers - the TUC and unionlearn, its learning and skills organisation, are publishing a new guide to occupational health for union safety reps. 
TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber said: “Workplaces where there are union safety reps tend to be both safer and healthier places. But the UK is currently facing an epidemic of occupational ill health. Many people are ill and in pain as a result of lifting injuries, slips and trips, stress and noise-induced hearing loss suffered either at, or caused by, their work.”