Several times I've used the feedback forms and even told the union and manager several times about my concerns blocking a fire exit.
Today it's worse then ever.
If I'm in my department of the warehouse and a fire broke out. I would have to climb over 100s of cages and a deisel energy generater and boxes just to get out of the building!
I would share a pic but I wish to remain anonymous here but I want to send photos to whoever the "board" is..
My store has failed safety and fire safety audits constantly and as someone who has lost people to fires and I'm partly disabled I won't be able to do acrobatics just to get through the fire door.
This is the 14th time the fire exit route has been blocked off entirely.
Clearly a breach of our safety but also the fact they failed the last audit and that was when this fire exit was CLEAR (they failed as they had cage near a lockup and it may cause someone to be trapped if the cage rolled)
But there's 1000s empty cages and rubbish filled caged and deisel/petrol generators and all sorts in the way it would take me the entire shift to clear and my manager isn't in today and the store manager is the one who just shrugs and doesn't seem to care othet then "oh yeh it shouldnt be blocked like that. Well nothing we can do right now I'll get it looked into"
You must have a health & safety rep instore...they are not just to represent union members, but every colleague. Their contact details should be on the staff notice board. It is their duty to keep the store free from hazards, and blocking a fire door is definitely an enormous issue that needs addressing ASAP! They must have seen this on their regular store walks? They have the power to serve the SM a notice ( I don't recall the numbered section of the notice?) but once served the SM is duty bound to act, or risk having it escalated.
If you are a union member you can also ask a union rep to address the issue. Another us to have it brought up in the next forum, of which your PP should be in attendance...don't be fooled of any insistence that you put your name on the forum card...this is not not correct!
There is also the protector line, I'm not sure how good or bad they are as feedback often varies?
if it doesn't affect money going through the till then they don't give a toss......until there's a serious accident or worse!!! >:(
That's right as long as the cash is coming in they won't care, unless an auditor comes in then it will be your fault but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it
Hi sorry to add to this post, not sure how to create my own. New member but always found this forum interesting. I'd just like to ask if a store is open 11am-5pm on a Sunday and open at 10.30 for "browsing" but decide to open the tills and serve customers at 10.45am so technically open over the 6 hour limit on a Sunday for a large store, is this allowed? Thanks in advance for responses!!
You can't report anything except fraud, snitches get stitches, if you report to the relevent government body or through protector line "anonymously' they tell the SM and PP, senior management will then plant drugs in your bag and do a "random" drug search on you and then sack you on gross misconduct.
Quote from: Thedude2022 on 18-07-22, 06:54PMHi sorry to add to this post, not sure how to create my own. New member but always found this forum interesting. I'd just like to ask if a store is open 11am-5pm on a Sunday and open at 10.30 for "browsing" but decide to open the tills and serve customers at 10.45am so technically open over the 6 hour limit on a Sunday for a large store, is this allowed? Thanks in advance for responses!!
they would have to close at 16:45, had this with the pandemic, SM let customers in through the staff entrance at 9:45(store opens at 11), had to close at 15:45
Quote from: person7 on 18-07-22, 03:06PMSeveral times I've used the feedback forms and even told the union and manager several times about my concerns blocking a fire exit.
Today it's worse then ever.
If I'm in my department of the warehouse and a fire broke out. I would have to climb over 100s of cages and a deisel energy generater and boxes just to get out of the building!
I would share a pic but I wish to remain anonymous here but I want to send photos to whoever the "board" is..
My store has failed safety and fire safety audits constantly and as someone who has lost people to fires and I'm partly disabled I won't be able to do acrobatics just to get through the fire door.
This is the 14th time the fire exit route has been blocked off entirely.
Clearly a breach of our safety but also the fact they failed the last audit and that was when this fire exit was CLEAR (they failed as they had cage near a lockup and it may cause someone to be trapped if the cage rolled)
But there's 1000s empty cages and rubbish filled caged and deisel/petrol generators and all sorts in the way it would take me the entire shift to clear and my manager isn't in today and the store manager is the one who just shrugs and doesn't seem to care othet then "oh yeh it shouldnt be blocked like that. Well nothing we can do right now I'll get it looked into"
This is a serious breach. Your store manager is accountable and should be acting as such. I suggest that you ask where else you can work in the store until this breach of safety has been addressed. You are not accountable but by continuing to work in an unsafe area you opening yourself up to being questioned on knowingly working in an unsafe way.
As above has suggested you need to go out of store. Contact your union area office or go to the main Manchester office. You may get results going to your union reps in store but as you have been fobbed off I think it would be better to take out of store. If you can get your union rep and health and safety rep to act together to get this resolved it will keep it all in house, I'm not sure that is a good thing or not considering the history.
The store should have next steps to complete as follow up to a bad audit. They must show things are being addressed. I fail to see how a store can continually fail on these basic health and safety checks.
Totally off topic but has your store not given a c**p about anyone working in this heat all I get is aren't you lucky working in the sun
Quote from: lucgeo on 18-07-22, 03:40PMYou must have a health & safety rep instore...they are not just to represent union members, but every colleague. Their contact details should be on the staff notice board. It is their duty to keep the store free from hazards, and blocking a fire door is definitely an enormous issue that needs addressing ASAP! They must have seen this on their regular store walks? They have the power to serve the SM a notice ( I don't recall the numbered section of the notice?) but once served the SM is duty bound to act, or risk having it escalated.
If you are a union member you can also ask a union rep to address the issue. Another us to have it brought up in the next forum, of which your PP should be in attendance...don't be fooled of any insistence that you put your name on the forum card...this is not not correct!
There is also the protector line, I'm not sure how good or bad they are as feedback often varies?
we dont have a notice board other then the race for life stuff - so no idea who the health and safety rep is - the union rep is always complaining about it too but the store does nothing - that said he is on leave this week which i wonder if thats why everyone thinks its ok to block the fire exit while he is not there. ??? - I've brought it up every forum for the past year, but nothing seems to be done - even the anonymous forum feedback the store manager replies and posts this on the wall with blutac - and promised us new pdas - promised us "detailed decoration to avoid fire exit being regularly blocked" ..... 10 months later, we are still waiting.. and as you say.. fire exit being blocked is the highest priority and illegal!
Quote from: Grizzly on 18-07-22, 06:25PMThat's right as long as the cash is coming in they won't care, unless an auditor comes in then it will be your fault but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it
what shocks me.. is our store has failed 4 audits in a row already but none about the fire exit as they seem to manage to clear it before the auditor comes in! (the fails were due to elsewhere)
Quote from: Grizzly on 19-07-22, 06:01PMTotally off topic but has your store not given a c**p about anyone working in this heat all I get is aren't you lucky working in the sun
our store has super air conditioning some staff even had jumpers on still! thats the one thing they are good at.
Quote from: Redshoes on 19-07-22, 01:31PMThis is a serious breach. Your store manager is accountable and should be acting as such. I suggest that you ask where else you can work in the store until this breach of safety has been addressed. You are not accountable but by continuing to work in an unsafe area you opening yourself up to being questioned on knowingly working in an unsafe way.
As above has suggested you need to go out of store. Contact your union area office or go to the main Manchester office. You may get results going to your union reps in store but as you have been fobbed off I think it would be better to take out of store. If you can get your union rep and health and safety rep to act together to get this resolved it will keep it all in house, I'm not sure that is a good thing or not considering the history.
The store should have next steps to complete as follow up to a bad audit. They must show things are being addressed. I fail to see how a store can continually fail on these basic health and safety checks.
thanks, i do remember passing the manchester usdaw building on a bus once so i might pay them a visit directly even if it takes me couple hours to get there (i'll try phone first of course) - normally i would get the store manager but seeing this is at least the 8th time in the past year and its failed several audits already (just none about the fire exit next) - then i feel i need to involve outside the building.
Take photos etc and report to the local environmental health department
Local councils and government regulatory bodies are in cahoots with Tesco, once I contacted the food standards agency as the Store Manager wanted us to sell bakery goods from being baked in the oven throughout the night shift until 7am when the baker would bake the next batch, this is even after wasting the bakery goods off 9 hours before.
When I raised a report anonymously, the agent asked me for my personal information so they can inform the Store Manager.
Quote from: person7 on 20-07-22, 12:13PMQuote from: Redshoes on 19-07-22, 01:31PMThis is a serious breach. Your store manager is accountable and should be acting as such. I suggest that you ask where else you can work in the store until this breach of safety has been addressed. You are not accountable but by continuing to work in an unsafe area you opening yourself up to being questioned on knowingly working in an unsafe way.
As above has suggested you need to go out of store. Contact your union area office or go to the main Manchester office. You may get results going to your union reps in store but as you have been fobbed off I think it would be better to take out of store. If you can get your union rep and health and safety rep to act together to get this resolved it will keep it all in house, I'm not sure that is a good thing or not considering the history.
The store should have next steps to complete as follow up to a bad audit. They must show things are being addressed. I fail to see how a store can continually fail on these basic health and safety checks.
thanks, i do remember passing the manchester usdaw building on a bus once so i might pay them a visit directly even if it takes me couple hours to get there (i'll try phone first of course) - normally i would get the store manager but seeing this is at least the 8th time in the past year and its failed several audits already (just none about the fire exit next) - then i feel i need to involve outside the building.
We are all responsible for breach of health and safety but the store manager is accountable. I was single manager in the building and I closed the pfs for health and safety issue. After it was closed I worried I had made a bad call. I had to tell store manager and SD as that is part of process. Next day the store manager said he had wondered if I had made bad call but after viewing pfs he said I was 100% right. He said "it would be me and you in court if anything had happened". As pfs was closed it got the team up to sort a minor issue that had grown over days. This is not related to a blocked fire door but the responsibility and accountability is. If anything happens anyone responsible and those accountable will be questioned and with the potential to end in court as witness or being prosecuted.
A blocked fire door should be a simple matter of just moving a cage so easily resolved. If it is a bigger problem and not so easily resolved it needs to go higher and higher until resolved.
Quote from: person7 on 20-07-22, 12:06PMQuote from: lucgeo on 18-07-22, 03:40PMYou must have a health & safety rep instore...they are not just to represent union members, but every colleague. Their contact details should be on the staff notice board. It is their duty to keep the store free from hazards, and blocking a fire door is definitely an enormous issue that needs addressing ASAP! They must have seen this on their regular store walks? They have the power to serve the SM a notice ( I don't recall the numbered section of the notice?) but once served the SM is duty bound to act, or risk having it escalated.
If you are a union member you can also ask a union rep to address the issue. Another us to have it brought up in the next forum, of which your PP should be in attendance...don't be fooled of any insistence that you put your name on the forum card...this is not not correct!
There is also the protector line, I'm not sure how good or bad they are as feedback often varies?
we dont have a notice board other then the race for life stuff - so no idea who the health and safety rep is - the union rep is always complaining about it too but the store does nothing - that said he is on leave this week which i wonder if thats why everyone thinks its ok to block the fire exit while he is not there. ??? - I've brought it up every forum for the past year, but nothing seems to be done - even the anonymous forum feedback the store manager replies and posts this on the wall with blutac - and promised us new pdas - promised us "detailed decoration to avoid fire exit being regularly blocked" ..... 10 months later, we are still waiting.. and as you say.. fire exit being blocked is the highest priority and illegal!
The union rep should not be always complaining about it! They should be following through with it! They know who the H&S rep is...the H&S rep should be at every forum meeting, when your complaints have been brought up, they should be ensuring that it is addressed immediately!
There should be a follow up of the points raised in the forum, printed on the notice board, with who is allocated to deal with each issue, when, and length of time allocated for conclusion!
There should be a union notice board with details of each rep, and contact details! Your reps have an email contact address for the area rep, to bring this to there attention!
I'm sorry, but if you are a union member and this is the support you're getting from your store reps, then you are being seriously under represented!
The USDAW office in Manchester has a receptionist, and I doubt you will be able to have a face to face unannounced! However, nothing wrong with you taking a photo of the fire doors, leaving it in the reception, in an envelope FAO the area union officer (you could have a list of the latest ones in your little union booklets that you receive regularly) put a note in with it, stating date...time and store number! You don't need to leave your name!
Ask your rep who your H&S rep is? It could be that you don't have one, which is also in breach of policy!
Quote from: FarmerFred on 20-07-22, 04:46PMTake photos etc and report to the local environmental health department
already got photos but the local environmental health have been pathetic with regarding regular noise pollution from a neighbour so not sure if i fully trust them to do their job either - but cant hurt trying
Quote from: Redshoes on 21-07-22, 02:31PMA blocked fire door should be a simple matter of just moving a cage so easily resolved. If it is a bigger problem and not so easily resolved it needs to go higher and higher until resolved.
If it was just a cage or two i would take photos and fix the issue myself and then report to a manager or someone higher- I've done that more than once already -
the issue this time its not just piles of cages (like 100's) but also big 4ft tall industriel diesel generator, old chairs/benches and the odd broken trolleys as well. not even sure why we have a giant generator to be honest - I've already had to make complaints as few weeks ago it was on with warehouse door open but all the fumes didnt vent out - lets say several of us just walked out but went back into clock out at end of the day and the store manager was furious that the machine was on (by workmen installing new lights) and didnt blame us for walking out for the last 2 hours.
but anyway, the machine is still there weeks later and seems to need a forklift to move but when the warehouse fills with cardboard and plastics the "empty cages" get put next to the generator is now.. which normally is not an issue other then its right in the emergency exit path.
if that makes sense?
I would share a photo here to show what I mean but if any my employees are on here -- i dont want them to start "ratting" me out - its happened in a previous job elsewhere not to me but to a colleague
by the way: Does anyone know if protector line has an email address? I can create a new email account with no name or personal info attached - as then i can send over the photos to them - i know theres the phone number but I want to send them evidence
Take pictures everyday,surely the personnel manager for your area must do something,personnel means looking after your people,the duty managers must be held accountable for fudging duty checks surely,or anonymously tip off fire dept,they do periodic fire checks
Create your email address...then send it to every official body you can think of...then send to...the Tesco CEO...the USDAW chief...the papers...the local fire station etc! Title it with such as " heatwave...combustible materials...blocked fire exit...we're all doomed!!! >:( >:(
:thumbup: @person 7 do it please >:D
Quote from: lucgeo on 23-07-22, 06:28AMCreate your email address...then send it to every official body you can think of...then send to...the Tesco CEO...the USDAW chief...the papers...the local fire station etc! Title it with such as " heatwave...combustible materials...blocked fire exit...we're all doomed!!! >:( >:(
great idea actually! -
what I can do is send to the official bodies but not papers yet, but say "if this is not rectified in a short timely matter I will have no choice but to inform the local papers" - might scare them to do something about it!
Update: I found the protector line email address - never got a reply but Sunday somehow we had 6 random "visitors" throughout the day and managers were all in a panic whole time.
Most importantly the fire exit route has never been more clear! no idea if its a co-incidence or not but its "something" - I'll have to try be sneaky and find out what went on but I'm on holiday leave now LOL
With the tories looking at making labour unions illegal and to scrap employment law, looks like the HSE will be made redundant at this point in the near future.
Sometimes what is said behind closed doors is never known but if issue is now resolved and stays resolved you have a quiet victory
Excellent to hear its magically been resolved. If they slip back into their old ways I suggest
contacting your local fire service inspector. Fire Inspector was tipped off by someone in our store when we had issues! Seem to sort out the issue rather quickly!
Next time contact the local fire station. They will get the areas fire enforcement office to visit. If they find an exit blocked like that then they will ask for it to be cleared immediately or they can potentially close the store. This was the advice I got from a family member who used to be the fire enforcement officer for our area :thumbup:
I've saved the local fire station number on my phone under a code name (in case someone wonders why i have them in my contacts)
thanks everyone for the advice about calling local fire station. (update the big generator machines have been removed entirely - so at least something was actually done about it).. but only when i went anonymous to protector line via a burner email address, in fact if it happens again i'll email them with photos AND call local fire station same time and tell them it was reported to both..
like someone in the thread said, we are ALL responsible to use common sense and keep them clear and if we see something simple block move it and sort it.. but obviously big blockages are even more serious. not that the fire escape has been used for years... but if its blocked the ONE time its needed.. well i know people who have died in fires unable to get out.. and thats just their house.. never mind a warehouse with tons of fridge equipment etc