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.

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.

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.

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.

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, 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.

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.