OSH Blog
The aim of this blog is to bring you news about developments in occupational safety and health across the EU and beyond, and also about EU-OSHA initiatives and activities to fulfill our mission.
We are one of the smallest EU agencies and cannot promise to reply to every comment, but we will read them and bear them in mind to shape our future work.
Working better, longer
We've just seen the launch in Copenhagen of the European Year of Active Ageing 2012, which deals with an issue that will be vital for all of us in the years ahead. The problem is that we’re living longer than ever before. It’s a good problem to have, of course: since 1960, average life expectancy in Europe has gone up by eight years. But combine this with falling birth rates, and the result is that we’re likely to see increasing numbers of older people in the European workforce. More than half of older workers currently leave work before they have to, for a variety of reasons. Estimates show, though, that there will be a big rise in workers aged 55 to 64 between 2010 and 2060, as a share of the total workforce. Increasingly, employers will have to get used to relying on older workers.
Better together: the launch of our new campaign
These are exciting times at the Agency: we’ve just launched our latest two-year, Europe-wide Healthy Workplaces Campaign. These campaigns are now the biggest occupational safety and health (OSH) campaigns in the world, and our new one, which we’re calling Working together for risk prevention, we hope will see record numbers of people getting involved.
At the same time, though, we’re very aware of how urgently we need a campaign like ours. For all that we’ve achieved in OSH, over five and a half thousand people are still dying every year in the EU as a result of workplace accidents, and thousands more from occupational diseases: the equivalent of one every three and a half minutes. And these deaths are only part of the story: there are also the thousands of European workers who have to live with the effects of accidents and poor health, caused by their work. We can work out the financial cost of all these accidents and work-related health problems, but that isn’t to take account of their full human cost.
Taking the pulse of Europe: occupational health and safety concerns revealed in major poll
At the Agency, we’re acutely aware of the way that the economic crisis in Europe, and the changing world of work, is putting extra strain on the occupational health and safety of European workers. That’s why it’s particularly important that we’ve taken the pulse of the European workforce now, with our second major European Opinion Poll on Occupational Safety and Health. Carried out for us by Ipsos MORI, the poll involved asking some 35,000 members of the public a series of questions, designed to test their opinions on a range of OSH-related subjects.
Facing up to the demographic challenge in Sweden
The Director of EU-OSHA, Dr Christa Sedlaschek, exchanged the rain of Bilbao for the snow of Stockholm to attend a high-level seminar along with Hillevi Engström, Arbetsmarknadsminister (Minister for work) and Mikael Sjöberg, Director-General of the Arbetsmiljöverket (Swedish Work Environment Authority), to discuss how working life and the work environment has to change and adapt to the new challenges facing Europe's citizens.
17th International Commemoration Day (ICD) for Dead and Injured Workers - April 28 2012
The International Commemoration Day (ICD) for Dead and Injured Workers, Workers’ Memorial Day, is a major event for trade unions around the world. This year's motto remains the same as last year - ‘Unions make work safer’ but a lot of the focus this year is on the need for strong regulation and enforcement as part of a holistic occupational safety and health system. Organised by the ITUC , the day is used to highlight the human cost of poor working conditions and campaign for decent work.
OHSA - Ten years of success in Malta
Dr Nicola Zammit wrote a series of essays entitled Pensieri d'un retrogrado in which he identified health and safety risks such as long working hours and lack of training, along with areas of dangerous work such as tunnelling and working at height. This was published in 1888, showing that Malta has had for a long time experts in safety and health at work. The Occupational Safety and Health Authority (OHSA) of Malta continues this trend of expertise as it celebrates its 10th anniversary. To mark the occasion, the Director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, Dr Christa Sedlatschek, visited Malta and attended a seminar entitled 10 years of service in Valletta.
Visit of Roel Gans, Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment, The Netherlands
The Governing Board of EU OSHA is its primary decision-making body. Composed of worker, employer, and government representatives from the each of the Member States plus observers from the EEA-EFTA countries, it makes key decisions on the Agency's work programme and budget as well as appointing the Director of EU OSHA.
Youth occupational safety high on the agenda
The 12th of August sees International Youth Day and tragically, and with an enormous cost to society, young workers continue to have more than 50% more non-fatal accidents than other age groups according to EU figures. So the occupational safety and health of young people remains high on the agenda. And the past few weeks have been quite an active time for policy discussion on this topic.
EU-OSHA participates in the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) annual PRAISE event
The European Transport Safety Council (ETSC) runs an annual event as part of their PRAISE project to promote and share best practice concerning the management of occupational road safety. ‘Preventing Road Accidents and Injuries for the Safety of Employees’ (PRAISE) aims to increase road safety in the work context. The project is co-funded by the European Commission, the German Road Safety Council, the Swiss Council for Accident Prevention (bfu) and the MAPFRE Foundation. It aims to ‘praise’ best practices in order to help employers secure high road safety standards for their employees.
EU-OSHA announced the European Good Practice Award winners on 28 of April, World Day for Safety and Health at Work
As part of the European Campaign 2010-2011 on Safe Maintenance, the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work organised in 2010 for the tenth time the European Good Practice Awards Competition, aiming to identify examples of good practice in the management of occupational safety and health during maintenance. Through the Good Practice Awards Competition EU-OSHA promotes good practice solutions at workplace and shares information about good practice across Europe. Forty entries from 22 Member States and Turkey were received, including organisations of all sizes and from a wide variety of industrial sectors.
Some Final Comments from the ETUC in Athens
The newly-elected General Secretary, Bernadette Segol, the first ever woman to hold this position in the history of the ETUC, took the floor this morning with a strong message for delegates. The "Athens Manifesto" adopted by Congress not only pointed the way forward but also needed trade unions to push its key messages. It was time to look ahead, she said, and to work for European Integration which was an ETUC objective. The ETUC was a critical friend of the EU on the road from austerity to prosperity. Did the pay cuts in Greece work, she asked? The answer was no. Her position was clear: wages were not the enemy of growth, but its engine. She would champion fundamental social rights and give them priority over economic freedoms.
New Leadership at the ETUC
Yesterday evening, the Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) in Athens voted and elected Bernadette Ségol as its new General Secretary. She will be the head of the European confederation for the next four years, alongside a new team. On the third day of the ETUC Congress, the delegates of trade unions from 36 countries elected the new team that is going to lead the confederation till 2015. Bernadette Ségol has been elected as the General Secretary, Józef Niemec and Patrick Itschert have been elected as deputy General Secretaries. Claudia Menne, Luca Visentini, Veronica Anna-Maria Nilsson and Judith Kirton-Darling have been elected as Confederal Secretaries and Ignacio Fernández Toxo has been elected as the new President of the ETUC. If you'd like to know more about the new team, read on.
Workplace Health and Safety takes centre stage
It's day three of the Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation in Athens and the work continues at a fast pace. Congress adopted the European trade union action plan to improve the health and safety situation in workplaces, stating that it was the least privileged socio-professional categories which were the worst hit by the health impacts of dangerous and detrimental working conditions.
László Andor has a lively debate with trade unions and drops by the EU-OSHA stand!
László Andor, European Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion, faced some tough questions from the delegates attending the 12th Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation in Athens today. It was gloves off time for the people who took part in a Round Table discussion with him on inequality and the effects of the crisis. But the Commissioner was eager to enter the debate and the discussion was lively.
Timely Opening for ETUC Congress
When the 12th Congress of the European Trade Union Confederation opened on Monday, 16 May, in Athens, there was a palpable air of gravitas. Despite the sunshine and blue skies outside, the atmosphere in the hall where more than 500 delegates from across Europe gathered was sombre. The extreme situation faced by Greek workers in the crisis was reiterated by Yannis Panagopoulos and Spyros Papaspyros, both Presidents of the two Greek trade union federations. Simulataneous meetings of EU Finance Ministers and the IMF had delegates anxiously tapping their laptops and phones for updates.
Workers' memorial day - 28 April 2011
The European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks uncovered much interesting information. One of the most noticable was the correlation between the existenence of health and safety management measures and the presence of formal employee representation. For six key prevention measures, the presence of general employee representation is associated with a higher occurence of these key measures including risk assessments, analysis of sickness absence, and discussion of health and safety issues in high-level management meetings.
What technologies will shape “green jobs” by 2020? Your views are needed!
Last June we informed you in this blog about our "foresight of new and emerging occupational risks associated with new technologies in green jobs" that had just started. Since then, the first phase of the foresight has been completed and, within phase 2, we are now seeking your opinion on what new technologies may be found in green jobs by 2020 and impact on workers’ safety and health. Take part in our web consultation!
Developing Occupational Safety and Health Systems
The Macedonian Occupational Safety and Health Association hosted the first International Conference on OSH Management Systems, with cooperation of the State Labor Inspectorate within the Ministry of Labor and Social Policy, in Struga on 8th and 9th February 2011.
Building 5 pillars to safety and health at work
Dresden was the venue for the 2nd Strategy Conference, "Five pillars on safety and health at work". This international conference took 5 themes and examined how strategies worked to address them. The five pillars were:
Working on health and safety in a wider context
EU-OSHA is a key information provider not only for Europe but also the world. With the importance of the EU's role in raising labour standards around the globe clearly stated in the Community Strategy on Safety and Health at Work, the Agency works hard to improve collaboration and communication between all stakeholders in the globalised work environment. As part of this task, EU-OSHA participated in the ILO CIS regional meeting held in London for national and collaborating centres in European and Central Asian Countries.
