“Reps are ringing up all day and I’ve had to repeat the same line again and again,” reported one Socialist Party member who works for a trade union: “There is no legal maximum temperature.”
Workers have had to take things into their own hands to ensure safe working. Unite the Union issued guidance to hospitality workers to “act collectively” to submit grievances, and highlighted the right to walk out under Section 44 of the Employment Rights Act (ERA) 1996, if there is “serious and imminent danger”.
“The women working in the canteen in my college threatened wildcat action if they weren’t allowed to take their hats and aprons off. The catering manager quickly backed off!” reports Duncan Moore in Devon.
Sheila Caffrey reports that “with temperatures hitting top-30s in Bristol, many schools and colleges announced that they were closing. But some didn’t. In one, the National Education Union (NEU) rep used Section 44 of the ERA, sending in a letter, which she told the head others would be following. It was announced the school was to be closed within half an hour.
“A SEND school that is profit-making refused to close. There is a very active union group. S44 letters started to go in. At 17 letters, there still wasn’t a response. The branch secretary sent in a letter suggesting that these fears may be shared in the media – the school was closed.”
A London bus worker says: “There’s been unbearable temperatures on the buses. When they manufacture the buses they don’t put the best systems in place, to save costs. That’s because of the private companies. The Labour London mayor Sadiq Khan said the bus operators will not be penalised. But the operators are telling drivers, when they’ve taken a 15-minute break due to the heat, you’ve got to go back into a hot bus. So you’re in and out, and that’s a lot of people waiting on a hot bus.
“The solution is we need to get rid of these private companies, we need to renationalise them. The mayor says he’s the son of a bus driver, but his dad worked under London Transport which was publicly owned. London bus drivers had the best terms and conditions and pay when we were under public ownership. We need to replace the mayor with someone who stands with the workers, not the bosses.”
