Staff at a jail in Regina, Canada refused to work after home made weapons were found in inmate's cells the previous day. During the job action, night shift staff and management were forced to run the jail whilst the action was taking place.

The staff action also led to a lockdown in the institution. Inmates were not permitted to leave their cells during the action and certain programs had to be postponed. The lockdown remained in state for several days whilst staff and management dealt with workplace issues involving risks to staff safety.

The action by jail staff was permitted under the State's Occupational Health and Safety Act which allows employees to stay away from their job if they believe there is serious risk.

Although action of this kind is not commonplace, imagine the implications to your organisation if staff refused to work under either regional or national Health and Safety Legislation?

Such leglislation is in place in most countries and places a 'Duty of Care' of employers to their staff against risks and hazards encountered in the workplace. Regulations will differ from country to country, but in general will include the implementation of safe working practices to reduce levels of workplace accidents and general duties .

With reference to the UK Health and Safety at Work Act employers duties to staff involve:

• To provide workplace, access, equipment and methods or work which are safe and without risk to health.
• To provide employees with sufficient information, training and supervision as is necessary to ensure their safety and health.
• To provide and maintain a safe and healthy working environment.
• To provide and maintain good welfare and hygiene facilities.
• To ensure that the work does not expose anyone nearby or visitors to risk.

Taking into account the above, mailroom workers in the UK could legitimately refuse to work in circumstances where handling company mail could put them at risk. In the case of organisations who know themselves to be at risk from postal device attacks (say for instance research institutes at risk from animal rights groups) these rules could include a duty to their staff to provide both reliable mailscreening devices to detect possible injurious packages and proper training to teach staff how to recognise suspect mail from external indicators (and from x-ray images if they have such equipment on site).

Our scanmail 10k mailscanner and contraband detector would have automatically detected weapons in packages or gifts brought or mailed into a prison or jail. Additional verification could have been made in seconds with our scanmax x-ray scanners.. saving both time, staff action due to safety concerns, prison lockdown and money due to downtime.

We all have a duty of care of our employees, whichever way we interpret the rules. Make the workplace a safe place for you and your staff.....screen all mail and packages entering your premises.