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Cllr Chris Naylor |
Bid to ‘gag’ building workers who speak to media about safety worries
Housing chief claims ‘lazy’ New Journal investigation has ‘maligned’ his department
WORKERS at the department charged with repairing Camden’s council homes have claimed they are being “gagged” to prevent concerns over health and safety and workplace bullying being made public.
Craftsmen and women at the council’s Building Maintenance Division (BMD), based in Holmes Road, spoke to the New Journal last week about complaints of bullying, unfair dismissal, and health and safety breaches.
But all staff were sent an instant memo which, rather than addressing their concerns, instead warned them that talking to the press was a breach of the council’s code of conduct.
One BMD worker, who fears he will lose his job if he is named, said: “Instead of sorting out their problems, they want to shut us up.”
On Thursday, when the New Journal report appeared, staff at the BMD were called to a mass meeting with the newly appointed head of the Housing and Adult Social Care department, Michael Scorer.
He later wrote an entry on his new blog, condemning the New Journal report for “maligning the BMD”, describing it as “extremely poor journalism” and claiming that “health and safety is the most important thing we do”.
Both the memo and the blog extract were later leaked.
A council press official said yesterday that Mr Scorer’s visit to BMD was pre-planned and not related to the coverage, and that he pointed out to staff that there were a number of ways that they could report grievances, concerns or complaints without redress to the newspaper.
However, the council has not officially challenged any of the content of the New Journal article.
“This is how they work – through threats,” said Jason Howard, a multi-trade craftsman dismissed from his agency contract at the Holmes Road depot last month. “There is no attempt to address these issues. They think they can stop you speaking out – that they can rule your life.”
Although the council has repeatedly said that it cannot act without receiving formal complaints from staff experiencing concerns and has no reason to believe that health and safety laws are being broken, it emerged this week that BMD was the first department in the council to be selected for a health and safety review earlier this year.
A council press official said this was not because of any existing concerns but because BMD workers were in the “front line”.
The press official said: “The jobs in BMD vary widely from scaffolders to electricians.
“The Council seek to provide whatever information, instruction and training is needed to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, the health and safety of our employees.
“As part of this commitment to ensure our practices are as robust as possible the council began a corporate review of health and safety earlier this year – this is standard practice and BMD form part of this review.”
The elected housing boss, Councillor Chris Naylor, said yesterday (Wednesday) that the issues raised were being investigated.
He added that a change in the procurement system for future repair contracts would mean that BMD would have to compete with private contractors for work.
“Health and Safety and management would both form part of that tender process,” he said. |
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