05/09/2026
📢 CWU NORTH ANGLIA SAFETY TEAM – HAZARDS CONFERENCE 2026
This weekend, members of the CWU North Anglia Branch Safety Team are at Keele University for the 2026 Hazards Conference – joining trade union health & safety representatives from across the country to discuss one of the most important issues facing working people today:
How do we make our workplaces safer, healthier and fairer?
And importantly, health & safety isn’t just about hard hats, machinery and physical injuries. The conference is putting a huge focus on the psychosocial hazards that increasingly affect workers, including stress, excessive workloads, bullying, fatigue, aggression, isolation and the impact of workplace change.
🧠 WORKPLACE STRESS & MENTAL HEALTH
The opening plenary is looking at why psychological risks at work are so often treated differently from physical risks.
For CWU members, this is hugely relevant.
Excessive workloads, unrealistic targets, constant organisational change, lack of control, poor management, understaffing and the pressure to continually do more with less can all contribute to work-related stress.
The question isn’t simply “How resilient is the worker?”
The question should be:
“What is it about the workplace that is creating the risk in the first place, and what is the employer doing about it?”
🤖 AI, TECHNOLOGY & THE FUTURE OF WORK
Another major session will examine Artificial Intelligence and rapidly changing technology.
For postal and telecoms workers, this is particularly important.
Technology can bring opportunities, but it can also mean increased surveillance, algorithmic management, deskilling, job losses, increased workloads and decisions being made about workers without proper consultation.
Safety representatives need to be involved before these changes are introduced, not after the damage has been done.
📊 STRESS RISK ASSESSMENTS & SAFER WORKLOADS
The workshops include practical sessions on:
➡️ Conducting Stress Risk Assessments
➡️ Safer Workloads
➡️ Workplace Health & Safety Committees
➡️ Organising through Health & Safety
➡️ Handling Aggression at Work
➡️ Remote & Isolated Working
➡️ Equality & Safety
➡️ Protecting Younger Workers
These aren’t abstract issues.
They are issues that CWU representatives encounter every day.
🌡️ CLIMATE & WORK
The conference is also looking at the growing impact of climate change on working people, including heat, air quality, flooding, fires, disease and changing working conditions.
With extreme weather becoming increasingly common, climate risk is also becoming a workplace health & safety issue.
⚖️ USING THE LAW & EVIDENCE TO CHALLENGE EMPLOYERS
One of the most interesting fringe sessions will look at enforcement and how unions can use existing health & safety and equality legislation, consultation rights, evidence, risk assessments, safety committees and membership backing to put pressure on employers.
That is something we strongly believe in at CWU North Anglia.
Health & Safety isn’t something that should simply be left to management.
Safety is a collective trade union issue.
The strongest safety reps are informed, organised and supported by their members.
This weekend is about bringing that knowledge back into our workplaces, sharing good practice, strengthening our approach and making sure CWU members have a voice when decisions are made that affect their health, safety and wellbeing.
✊ SAFE WORKPLACES DON’T HAPPEN BY ACCIDENT.
They happen because workers organise, safety reps challenge, and unions refuse to accept unsafe or unhealthy working conditions as “just part of the job”.
We’ll be bringing ideas and learning from Keele back to CWU North Anglia.
Watch this space for updates from the conference.
