NW Regional Safety Forum Health & Safety Props To CWU Annual Conference 2014

The CWU’s annual general conference will take place much earlier this year than is usually the case – 27th and 28th April. As is usual, the venue will be the Bournemouth International Conference Centre.

This years agenda is made up of 11 areas of policy making and a total of 135 propositions to be debated. A further 15 props are listed as having been ‘X marked’ identifying them as those not accepted by the Standing Orders committee, to the agenda; and therefore will not be debated (subject to appeal).

The North West Regional Health and Safety Forum has submitted two propositions. The first dealing with minimum tyre tread depths for all fleet vehicles that CWU members drive as part of their daily work duties, and the second concerning the continued threat to Health and Safety at work protection legislation by the coalition government.

The whole conference document can be downloaded here, but below is the wording of both props as they appear on the CWU General Conference 2014 Agenda:

Prop 113
Conference notes that any light vehicle used on UK roads needs to be roadworthy and as such the minimum tyre depth tread is 1.6 mm, however most road professional organisations recommend changing tyres at 3mm following extensive research into stopping distance end, for example, BT Fleet currently recommends tyre depth tread and renewal of tyre at 2mm.

In the event of an incident, if a tyre is legal, no prosecution could be brought for defective tyres. Other contributing factors such speed or driver error would be identified as the cause.

As far as stopping distances are concerned, there are optimum levels of tread for best performance and the distance required to stop noticeably increases when the tread depth is below 3mm.

The CWU should campaign for a minimum tyre tread depth of 3mm to assist in safer stopping distance wherever we have members who drive fleet vehicles for any company.

Prop 114
This Conference instructs the NEC that the National Executive Council and the Health end Safety Department continue to oppose both the Young and Loftstedt reports and many of the actions that have been subsequently taken by them.

Furthermore to campaign that the removal of strict liability should be restored to protect the most vulnerable workers and the CWU to continues to support the TUC “Defend Health and Safety” campaign, seeking to reverse changes to the way Health and Safety at work is both legislated and enforced.

Source: CWU / Unionsafety

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