health and safety concerns

The activities that are protected are listed below. The protection applies whether the employee has already done one of these things or proposes to do so:

• Bringing to the company's attention, by reasonable means, circumstances that the employee reasonably believes are harmful or potentially harmful to health and safety. If there is a health and safety representative or committee at the workplace, the employee is usually protected only if he or she raises concerns by those means. If it is not reasonably practicable to raise the issue through those channels, however, or the employee reasonably believes that there is a serious and imminent threat to safety, then the employee is protected if he or she raises the issue with the employer direct, or by some other appropriate means, such as through a union representative.
• Carrying out health and safety duties allocated by the company.
• Carrying out duties as a health and safety representative or a member of a safety committee.
• Taking part in consultations over health and safety or the election of employee safety representatives.
• Leaving, or refusing to return to, the place of work because of a threat to health and safety that the employee reasonably believes to be serious and imminent, and which the employee cannot reasonably be expected to avert. This could include safety threats caused by the behaviour of fellow employees.
• Taking appropriate steps to protect the employee or other people from a threat to health and safety that the employee reasonably believes to be serious and imminent. This includes action to protect members of the public or other employees. Whether the steps the employee takes are appropriate depends in particular on the employee's knowledge and the facilities and advice that are available. It is lawful for a company to penalise or dismiss an employee if he or she has acted so negligently that any reasonable employer would have responded in that way.