In response to an article highlighting the health risks associated with hairdressing, the NHBF said

In common with many low risk businesses, the main causes of injuries in hair salons, barbershops and beauty salons are slips, trips and falls, rather than occupationally-specific conditions.

The NHBF takes health and safety seriously, and has published a toolkit to help prevent some of the health risks specifically associated with working within the hairdressing industry. One example is contact dermatitis which is caused by frequent ‘wet work’. Research published by the UK Health & Safety Executive (HSE) shows that hairdressers and beauty therapists have higher rates of contact dermatitis than other industries. However, rates have fallen over the last 10 years and the condition affects just 82 people out of every 100,000. Initiatives such as ‘Bad Hand Day’, supported by the NHBF and the HSE, show that education to raise awareness of the condition and how to prevent it are more effective than a legally binding EU directive which negatively focuses on non-compliance and enforcement.

While the UK has resisted the EU directive, the agreement was signed in 2012 by UNI Europa on behalf of the unions, and the employer’s body, Coiffure EU, despite strong opposition and a majority of just one vote. Ten EU member states, including the UK, have stated that they would oppose implementing the agreement in their countries.

Seven years on, it has still not been implemented by the European Commission. The Commission itself has cited the hairdressers’ occupational health and safety agreement as an example of the kind of red tape bureaucracy they want to stamp out because it has a disproportionate impact on small businesses. Further, the agreement cannot be legally enforced on self-employed hairdressers and barbers, which means that approximately half of the UK workforce would be exempt from its requirements.

NHBF chief executive Hilary Hall said, “Employers owe it to the people working in their businesses to protect their health and safety. It makes good business sense too, as absence from work due to preventable conditions has an economic as well as a human cost. But we believe that education is a better way of tackling these problems than introducing yet more EU red tape.”