TUC guidance on avoiding skin cancer for outdoor workers

The UK Trades Union Congress (TUC) has issued guidelines for employers and union representatives on steps to minimise the risk of skin cancer for outdoor workers. The document notes the risks associated with outdoor working in the summertime and outlines a series of practical steps that can be taken to lessen the cancer risk. The guidance also raises interesting questions on the best way of regulating the risks of skin cancer to outside workers in the UK.

About the guidance document

In June 2009, the UK Trades Union Congress (TUC) published a document entitled Skin cancer and outdoor workers (46.2Kb PDF). The document explains how to minimise the exposure of outside workers to harmful rays from the sun and was issued to coincide with the UK summertime. The drawing up of the document was inspired by concerns about rising rates of skin cancer in the UK. As the TUC notes, there are 100,000 new cases of skin cancer each year in the UK, 2,000 of which are fatal. The TUC also developed the document in response to concerns that there was ambivalence over who was responsible for ensuring that workers were adequately protected from the sun and that many of the groups of workers exposed to such conditions – such as migrant and temporary agency workers – did not have adequate information on the risks involved and the responsibility of employers.

Proposed measures to reduce skin cancer risk

The document begins by outlining the existing body of UK health and safety law that is relevant to the issue of skin cancer and outside work. This existing regulation includes the legal obligation on employers to ensure the safety of their employees and the obligation of employers to provide workers with training on health and safety issues and free protective equipment if necessary. The guidelines outline a series of measures that are likely to be effective in minimising the risk of skin cancer for outdoor workers.

• A review of the work organisation is recommended. The document states that, in many instances, it is possible to reorganise work so that less outside work needs to be done by workers in the hottest months of the year or at the hottest times of the day.

• The document also suggests a range of suitable protective measures that can be implemented in workplaces. These include the provision of a choice of adequate sunscreens for workers who work outside, the provision of lightweight brimmed hats for all outdoor workers, the use of canopies or sheets to shade areas where work is undertaken outdoors, and the availability of shaded areas where employees may take breaks from the sun.

• The document also emphasises that adequate information on the risks of skin cancer for outside workers should be provided by employers and refers to the UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) guidance on the issue. It is also recommended that literature on health and safety measures be translated into other languages so as to be accessible to migrant workers.

Trade union view

TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber welcomed the issuing of the text and stated:

Skin cancer is the fastest growing kind of cancer in the UK and is killing more and more people every year… employers tend not to give their sun-exposed employees much of a thought. This may be because unlike injuries caused by a fall at work, the damaging effect of the sun is not obvious until many years after the damage is done. Taking simple precautions like looking at what time of the day outside work has to be done, providing canopies, cool comfortable clothing and sunscreen won’t cost the earth and could help save thousands of lives needlessly being cut short.

Commentary

One crucial problem surrounding the regulation of working conditions, levels of exposure to the sun and skin cancer is the ability of employees to legally establish the liability of employers in cases where workers develop skin cancer. As the TUC guidance states, skin cancer may develop years after an employee has worked at a particular site and the extent to which working conditions contribute to instances of skin cancer is often a contentious subject. In so far as this is the case, regulating skin cancer and working conditions through the law alone may be inadequate, and the development of complementary guidelines by the TUC that are aimed at employers and workplace union representatives are very welcome. Such guidelines are likely to lead to the required cultural shifts at workplaces that are needed to combat the risk of skin cancer to outside workers.

Thomas Prosser, IRRU, University of Warwick