In this paper, prepared for a keynote lecture to the International Commission on Occupational Health (ICOH) conference held in November 2023 in Durban, I explore the historical relationship between trade unions and occupational health and safety, comparing developments in South Africa and the United Kingdom (UK). The focus is on mining and I address the following questions: What impact did trade unions have, what was their relationship to occupational health and safety, and how did this change over time? I first argue the case for the central importance of trade unions and the progressive role they played, historically, in occupational health in the UK as 'guardians' of workers' bodies, critically examining the so-called 'trade union effect'. I then discuss the distinctive racialised nature of trade unionism in mining in South Africa and the role of the unions in occupational health. The powerful role that the whites-only Transvaal Miners' Union and the Mine Workers' Union played in occupational health is examined, and how the labour movement colluded in the tragedy of the silicosis and tuberculosis disaster amongst black miners in the twentieth century. I end the paper with a comment on how the emerging black trade union movement contributed to addressing the occupational health experience of black miners in the 1980s and 1990s.

Ergonomics is the scientific discipline concerned with customising workplace conditions and job demands to fit the capabilities, limitations, and needs of the workforce. It is a multidisciplinary field, synthesising principles from diverse areas such as human factors engineering, industrial engineering, physiology, psychology, industrial design, biomechanics, kinesiology, occupational safety, and occupational health. The Ergonomics Regulations compel employers to undertake ergonomic risk assessments, implement control measures, provide training, and conduct medical surveillance to protect employees from ergonomic-related disorders. The Regulations mandate that ergonomic risk assessments be performed by a 'competent person', yet stop short of defining explicit criteria for competence. This has led to some confusion regarding the involvement of health professionals in ergonomic risk assessment and raises the question, 'Do health professionals comply with the legal definition of competence for this task?' This paper uses a systems ergonomics approach to highlight the diverse and complex risk factors that human workers bring to the workplace. The authors argue that qualified health professionals are best positioned to identify and manage high-risk motor, sensory, psychosocial, cognitive, and behavioural human factors, and are therefore indispensable in the ergonomic risk assessment process.