World’s biggest workplace health and safety campaign goes from strength to strength
News release - 07.12.2009
What is now the world’s biggest workplace health and safety campaign – the Healthy Workplaces Campaign, organised by the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work – has reached more people than ever before, as the Agency works to keep European workers safe.
The latest campaign on risk assessment, which came to an end on 17 November 2009, saw record levels of involvement across all the EU Member States and beyond – hundreds of events were organised around the theme of risk assessment and its importance, over two million information sheets, DVDs and other pieces of campaign material were made available for free, and for the first time, over forty prominent European organisations got involved in the campaign as official partners. According to Agency Director Jukka Takala, ‘the high level of participation in the campaign over the past months reflects the importance of risk assessment for healthy workplaces.’
Throughout the campaign, the Agency closely cooperated with its network of national focal points, as well as employer and worker groups, health and safety institutions, and professional organisations with which it works throughout Europe. The risk assessment campaign, which has had backing at the highest level in Europe, emphasised the fact that the regular assessment of workplace risks is the key to health and safety management. But risk assessment is not something that needs to be complicated, bureaucratic, or left to experts: rather it is something that organisations of all sizes can carry out (as the law requires them to do). And with the Agency’s new Risk Assessment Tools Database, which makes checklists, guidance documents and other resources, either generic or branch/risk-specific, freely available across Europe, it is now even easier to carry out risk assessments simply and efficiently. The tool is accessible at: http://osha.europa.eu/en/practical-solutions/risk-assessment-tools
With the end of the risk assessment campaign, attention now shifts to the next Healthy Workplaces Campaign to raise awareness of the importance of maintenance for safe and healthy workplaces and the need to protect workers that carry it out. The campaign will take place between 2010 and 2011 and will be officially launched on 28 April 2010 on the World Day for Safety and Health at Work. The Agency is already inviting nominations for the European Good Practice Awards for 2010–11, which will recognise companies or organisations that have found innovative contributions ways to support safe maintenance.
According to Jukka Takala, ‘with over 450 Europeans dying every day from work-related causes, and with 6% of European GDP being lost because of work accidents and ill health, it is vital that we continue to focus on workplace health and safety. I am convinced that the campaign on safe maintenance will build on the success of the risk assessment campaign, and continue to reach out to Europe’s workers.’
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Healthy Workplaces campaign on risk assessment
Good Practice Awards 2010/2011
Risk Assessment Tools Database
Press inquiries
- 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
