TUC urges action to ‘address RSI issue’

Bad design is a major cause of repetitive strain injury and designers have a key role to play in stamping it out, according to the TUC. The congress is calling on the design industry to fight the problem.

The union this week unveiled survey findings which show RSI is a major problem in one in three UK workplaces.

TUC general council member Dick Pickering told delegates at the conference where the survey results were announced: “RSI is caused by bad design – badly designed tools, equipment and conditions. Pickering added: “Workers should be protected from the causes of RSI, and designers… should be designing so jobs fit the workers, rather than fitting workers to the job.”.

Design Council design director Sean Blair also spoke, and sees the TUC initiative as a positive step in encouraging health and safety representatives and employers to consider design “holistically”. And “the relative might of the TUC behind the design agenda has to be a good thing”, he says.

According to Owen Tudor, the TUC’s health and safety officer and conference organiser, the survey and conference are intended “for designers to be proactive in addressing the issue of RSI”.