A union is urging bosses in the district to take workplace stress more seriously.

The GMB, Britain's general union, wants employers and enforcement authorities to take the issue seriously in the run up to European Safety Week.

Stress, officially recognised as a workplace health and safety issue, costs employers about £370 million, according to the Health and Safety Executive. It estimates that work-related stress costs the UK about £3.75 billion a year.

The GMB fears that the current trend of promoting alternative therapies, such as massage and aromatherapy in the workplace, is trivialising a deadly serious problem.

Nigel Bryson, GMB director of health and environment, said: "Many employers are bringing in masseurs, having lunch time yoga sessions and even bringing in clowns for employees.

"While there may be a place for these types of activities they should not detract from addressing the organisational causes of stress.

"Employers are spending a great deal of time and money on these therapies, yet when it comes to implementing management systems to prevent stress many workplaces are sadly lacking.

"What we have in effect is the equivalent of employers ignoring a wet floor and putting a plaster cast on someone every time they slip over and break a bone. This cannot be tolerated."

Recent research into work- related stress in hospitals found risk management approaches can be effectively and cheaply implemented.

The GMB pubishes a Guide to Preventing Workplace Stress and is lobbying for an Approved Code of Practice on the issue. It says rules which spell out how risk assessment and management standards should be used to reduce stress are urgently needed.

Mr Bryson said: "For a cleaner working for a private contractor who is being bullied by her supervisor, working long, anti-social hours on low pay with little job security and a family to support, a lunch time aromatherapy massage will do little to prevent or control her stress.

"What she needs is for her employer to take management action to provide decent working conditions."

For further information on cutting workplace stress call the GMB on (0208) 947 3131.