Organisations and strategies
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Safety and health at work is now one of the most important and most highly developed aspects of EU’s policy on employment and social affairs.Work in this field is a complex interaction between various actors at EU and Member State level, including in particular governments and other public authorities, as well as workers’ and employers’ organisations. |
While in the past a vast body of Community legislation on safety and health at work was elaborated, nowadays, the development and implementation of holistic approaches and strategies towards occupational safety and health (OSH) becomes more and more important to further improve the working conditions in the EU Member States.
Also, there is a lot of information on OSH available from countries and organisations outside the EU, which can provide useful background and inspiration for efforts to create healthy and safe workplaces here.
OSH Strategies
OSH policy is not only a matter of laws and regulations - they are essential and have to be applied at the workplace level. But to achieve measurable improvements of the working conditions and a reduction of occupational accidents and diseases it is necessary to combine them with a variety of other instruments, such as social dialogue, good practices, awareness raising, corporate social responsibility, economic incentives and mainstreaming.
At EU-level, this holistic approach towards OSH has been adopted in the form of Community strategies on health and safety at work.
The current Community strategy aims to achieve a 25% cut in accidents at work across the EU by 2012. To achieve this goal it calls for action by players at all levels – European, national, local and workplaces.
A key concept and fundamental pillar for reaching the objectives of this Community strategy is the development and implementation of coherent national strategies in the EU Member States.
The shift towards new and information led strategies is a global one. The ILO adopted in 2006 its Promotional Framework for Occupational safety and Health; the WHO embraced a Global Action Plan on Worker’s health 2008 – 2017. Also, many countries outside the EU have developed OSH strategies to provide a clearer focus on the overall direction and to set the OSH priorities in their countries.
An essential step in the development of a national OSH strategy and programme is the preparation of a national OSH profile. Today, several countries have already developed such profiles, which provide an inventory of all the tools and resources available in the country to implement and manage OSH.
Read more about strategies and profiles related to occupational safety and health at EU, Member State and International level.
