SIPTU's branch secretary for construction, Mr Eric Fleming, claims safety representatives are being ignored on building sites.
He is also concerned that the effectiveness of legislation allowing for safety representatives to be elected by workers is being undermined by fears that disciplinary action may be taken against them.
Mr Fleming accuses the construction industry of not giving employees time to attend safety courses and says: "A lot of the courses are not being filled. The employers say `Oh, we're too busy'. When they're not busy they say: `We can't afford to send them'."
He warns that construction workers will not become safety representatives "unless they get the green light from the employer". Moreover, he says, they are not represented at the mandatory health and safety meetings on site.
His colleague, Mr Sylvester Cronin, safety and health adviser at SIPTU, claims that if construction workers raise health and safety on some sites "they're gone" they are not employed on the next site. "That has been confirmed to me by builders," he says.
According to Mr Dessie Robinson, safe site projects officer with ICTU Educational Training Services, employers and workers are fairly happy with safety representatives. "Where companies are serious about health and safety, it's working."
But there is a perception among some employers in the construction industry that if you're representing the workers "you're not doing management any favours," he says.
Mr Fergus Whelan, industrial officer with ICTU, believes the Construction Industry Federation (CIF) is doing a lot in terms of training its own members but wonders if member-companies are as well-disposed. He, too, questions the exclusion of workers from safety meetings.
Mr Peter McCabe, director of business development and safety services at CIF says member-companies have trained more than 50 safety representatives in the last month.
Part of the difficulty is that people move so much from job to job. It is easier to have safety representatives in fixed places, he says.
He also concedes that while it needs to be proven if safety representatives are not taken on to subsequent jobs, "if workers are saying it, maybe they've experienced it," he says.
The economic argument is the strongest for encouraging employers to have safety representatives. Studies show 7-8 per cent of resources are lost in poor safety, he says.
In the wider economy, safety representatives work well in some workplaces and not in others, according to Mr Frank Mahon, an inspector with the Health and Safety Authority (HSA).
Safety matters should not be pushed on to the safety representative because this is "not his role". If shop stewards see the position as their perogative, it can be subsumed under another role and achieve lower priority.
Mr Mahon cites a case where a safety representative, who was involved in an accident, had his award reduced because the court considered that, as a safety representative, he ought to have appreciated the danger. Moreover, some employees feel they could have been promoted if they hadn't been a safety representative, he says.
"You're a right eejit. You're not wearing your safety glasses," is likely to be more effective coming from the safety representative than from a manager, he says.
Mr Tony Briscoe, head of health and safety services at IBEC, believes the safety representative is advantageous to the employer, given a "non-adversarial, transparent approach". The role provides a mechanism for two-way communication and a useful safety monitoring function.
Mr Liam Byrne, PRO for the midland region of the National Irish Safety Organisation (NISO), says the safety representative "has no duties and no responsibilities. He only has rights".
The employer should not ask the safety representative to write the safety statement because that would constitute a conflict of interest.
Nor should the employer be adverse to the safety representative gaining access to privileged information if it leads to employees' health being protected and prevents the employer subsequently being sued.
