Extreme weather events show need for more legal protections for workers, says union

New legislation should be introduced to protect workers during extreme weather events, trade union Unite has said.

The union said more than half of its members who worked through Storm Éowyn recently did not feel safe on the journeys to and from their places of employment.

A survey of members conducted by the union to tie in with international Workers Memorial Day on Monday, also suggested more than half of those obliged to work outside during the storm did not feel their employers had done everything possible to ensure their safety.

Almost a quarter said there had been uncertainty in advance of the storm as to closures, related payment arrangements and any potential switch to remote working.

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The union, which says it has sought a meeting with the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment Peter Burke on the issue, points to data suggesting that five of the 17 fatalities during named storms since 2014 in the Republic of Ireland, involved people either working outdoors or travelling between home and work.

One of the union’s members in Northern Ireland, Matthew Campbell, was killed while working during Storm Ali in 2018.

Unite says it has been engaging with parties at Stormont since then and wants to see a range of measures adopted by the Government in Dublin, including a statutory obligation on employers to conduct extreme weather risk assessments for all employees.

It wants non-essential outdoor work to be suspended during extreme weather events and the workers impacted to be paid.

The union is also calling for a range of other related measures and supports with substantial fines or other sanctions for non-compliant employers.

“Accelerating climate change means that the intensity and frequency of extreme weather events are set to increase,” says the union’s Irish secretary, Susan Fitzgerald. “Workers must not be made to pay the price – in terms of their safety, health and livelihoods – for a climate crisis not of their making.”

A total of 447 people have died in work-related incidents in Ireland over the past decade, 34 of them last year. An event to mark Workers Memorial Day is due to take place at the Garden of Remembrance at 9.30am.