THE TUC is today celebrating the “unsung heroes” of the workplace on the 40th anniversary since health and safety reps were first introduced.

On its new website, the TUC credits the work of 100,000 reps around the country who help to reduce injuries and ill-health in the workplace under the Safety Reps Act 1977.

These volunteers are one of the major reasons that injury rates have fallen dramatically since 1977, the TUC says.

To show the crucial work they do, the TUC has profiled 36 reps around Britain.

One of them, Bob Grant of Unite, was a safety rep in a Scottish shipyard for the last six years of his working life. He noticed that the apprentices were often not wearing safety glasses.

He convinced management to buy more stylish glasses so that the apprentices would wear them. All sites reported a reduction in eye injuries — one by 93 per cent in just one month.

However TUC general secretary Frances O’Grady pointed out that health and safety is “under attack” by the Tories who see “good regulation as red tape,” and bosses who “want to cut corners and risk lives.”

She said: “We often forget that union health and safety representatives are volunteers doing this job because they care about their colleagues’ well-being. So let’s use this anniversary to celebrate the massive difference these unsung heroes have made.”

In 2016, a study of government statistics calculated that the prevention of workplace injuries and work-related ill-health due to unions contributed savings of £219 million to £725m a year.

You can read the TUC’s tributes to safety reps at mstar.link/2yHALfc.