Summit of the Healthy Workplaces Campaign on risk assessment

The Healthy Workplaces European Summit will see EU government ministers, Commission representatives and OSH experts looking at the highlights of the risk assessment campaign, as it comes to a close. The Swedish Minister of Labour, Mr Littorin, as representative of the EU Presidency and the Spanish Minister for Employment and Immigration, Mr Corbacho, are two of the high level politicians that will participate at the opening of the summit and the press conference.

The event will also include the award ceremony of a pan-European photo competition and presentations of some of our 43 EU campaign partners, giving insight to our first campaign partnership experience, and of the winners of the Good Practice Awards. This scheme recognises organisations that have found innovative ways of keeping European workers safe.

Preliminary results will also be made available of the European Survey of Enterprises on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER), a €2.6 million study which provides a unique insight into European organisations, the action they are taking to anticipate and manage the new risks brought about by changing workplaces, and the support they might need in doing so.

The Healthy Workplaces Campaign has for the last two years been raising the profile of risk assessment, as the key to good workplace safety and health. As EU-OSHA Director Jukka Takala says, ‘with proper risk assessment practices, we can prevent many of the workplace accidents that occur every four-and-a-half seconds in the EU. We urgently need to make employers, workers, safety representatives and policymakers aware that proper risk assessment is the key to good workplace safety and health.’

The Agency has also made a wide range of material freely available, to help organisations (and especially SMEs) carry out risk assessments in a systematic and thorough manner, and so identify the steps that they need to take to keep their employees safe. At the summit, EU-OSHA director, Dr Takala, presents a new Online Risk Assessment Tool with checklists and plans that help to demystify the risk assessment process. This free tool is being developed as a joint project with EU social partners.

For further information on the closing event, see http://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns/hw2008/europeansummit

For details of the Healthy Workplaces campaign on risk assessment, see http://osha.europa.eu/en/campaigns/hw2008/

• Birgit Müller - International press +34 94 479 35 52 | news@osha.europa.eu
• Marta Urrutia - Spanish press +34 94 479 57 46 | noticias@osha.europa.eu
• Brenda O’Brien - Brussels Liaison Office +32 2 401 68 59 | obrien@osha.europa.eu

Notes to editors:

 1. The mission of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) is to make Europe a safer, healthier and more productive place to work. EU-OSHA was set up by the European Union to help meet the information needs in the field of occupational safety and health. Based in Bilbao, Spain, EU-OSHA aims to improve the lives of people at work by stimulating the flow of technical, scientific and economic information between all those involved in occupational safety and health issues. http://osha.europa.eu

2. Healthy Workplaces. Good for you. Good for business. A European campaign on risk assessment is the Europe-wide information campaign organised by EU-OSHA. The current campaign (2008/2009) aims at reducing work-related accidents and illness through better risk assessment. It targets, in particular, SMEs and high risk sectors, such as construction, agriculture and transport. http://hw.osha.europa.eu

3. Pan-European photo competition: “What’s your image of safety and health at work?” The European Agency for Safety and Health invited people from across the 27 EU Member States to get actively involved in the Healthy Workplaces campaign and share their vision of Europe’s working conditions. The competition captured the imagination of photography enthusiasts with over 1,670 entries. The pictures were selected by a professional jury made up of acclaimed international photographers and an expert in occupational safety and health: Mertxe Alarcón, Clemente Bernad, Miguel Ángel Gaüeca, Ambroise Tézenas and Peter Rimmer. www.osha-photocompetition.eu

4. European Good practice awards

Eight organisations and companies were honoured with an award at the ninth annual European Good Practice competition organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA). The awards form part of the Healthy Workplaces campaign on risk assessment. The award winners and commended entries all promoted good safety and health practices in workplace risk assessment. A new booklet published today showcases the good practice initiatives they have implemented. http://osha.europa.eu/en/press/photos/audiovisuals

5. The European survey of enterprises on new and emerging risks (ESENER) is a European-wide establishment survey on health and safety at the workplace. Responsible actors are asked about how workplace risks are managed, particularly focusing on psychosocial risks. The survey aims to assist workplaces across Europe to deal more effectively with health and safety and promote the health and well-being of employees. It will provide policy makers with cross-nationally comparable information relevant for the design and implementation of new policies in this field. The survey, which involves approximately 40,000 interviews and covers 31 countries, has the support of governments and social partners at European level. For the Agency, this €2.6 million project represents one of the most important initiatives to date and is expected to provide valuable information for use over several years. http://osha.europa.eu/en/riskobservatory/enterprise-survey/about-the-survey