Scottish Tech & Games sector guidance - open forum
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The Scottish Government are putting together COVID/'Safer workplace' guidance for the Tech sector with members of SG and Tech & Games industry leaders. As a trade union with members in the tech and games sector, we have a seat at the table and an important voice in this discussion.
We want to make sure we're covering all your concerns so we're holding an open forum on Friday 26th June at 2pm. If you work in the Scottish Tech/Games, *please* make use of this opportunity - this is a direct route to power. Help us amplify your voices.
If you can't make it on Friday, contact us with comments by the end of the week.
Topics to consider for the meeting:
- Safe Working from Home (WFH) practices, during lockdown and in the future - what are the specific pressure points here? Has your workplace aided in making your home office safe? Will this be enough if WFH continues?
- What broad-brush guidance could discriminate against workers? Eg, does a push towards WFH discriminate against BAME workers, disabled workers, workers with caring responsibilites? What can we secure in the guidance to mitigate against this?
- Safe freelancing, contracting, and managed workspaces - considerations about physical visits and where the line between your employer’s responsibilities and the responsibility of the contractor may lie.
- Incubators - do you work in, eg, Codebase or Techcube? How is your company working with everyone else in the building?
What are critical operational roles that require physical access to offices? How to we protect these roles being arbitrarily assigned, and how do we ensure these workers are protected?
- Union presence - STUC's roving Health & Safety reps. Where workplaces do not represent unions, employers or workers may request that a union representative from outside the workplace can become involved in the process of creating, evaluating or monitoring the COVID 19 risk assessments?
- How do we use this guidance to protect the mental health of tech & games workers?
- Are there unique health & safety considerations that are unique to tech & games - for example, necessary physical proximity? What shared equipment/shared spaces do you have?
As you can see there's a lot to discuss. We can continue this discussion as the sector guidance continues. You don't have to be in a trade union to participate, but we would hope that you might be convinced to join one by the end of the process.
