In our mission to raise awareness of occupational safety and health (OSH) matters, we have run a variety of communication campaigns over the years, using a mix of different methods and communication techniques. This experience has shown us that a well-planned and targeted campaign can work wonders in changing how people think and act regarding health and safety at work.
We believe that any organisation, no matter the size, can run a campaign to publicise an OSH topic that affects them.
Information and communications technology makes the modern world go round. Working without mobile communications and the internet is now inconcievable. At the thematic day of the 64th meeting of the Senior Labour Inspectors' Committee (SLIC), the role of ICT systems in labour inspection was under discussion.
The Republic of Lithuania assumes the Presidency of the Council of the European Union on 1 July 2013, and to mark this the Director of EU-OSHA, Dr Christa Sedlatschek, visited Vilnius on 14 May to meet with Mrs Algimanta Pabedinskiene, Minister of Social Security and Labour of the Republic of Lithuania and the main stakeholders in the Lithuanian health and safety system.
Across the European Union, there is a huge amount of expertise in occupational safety and health, and sharing this knowledge is a cost-effective approach towards better worker protection in Europe.
On Wednesday, 8th May 2013, the Malta Occupational Health and Safety Authority in collaboration with the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work organized a half-day seminar on Crane Erection and Examination at the Grand Hotel Excelsior, Floriana. This seminar mainly targeted owners, erectors and examiners of cranes. Ing. Joachim Schulz, member of DGUV Expert Committee Construction Industry of Germany was the main speaker in this seminar.
The French Agency for Food, Environmental and Occupational Safety and Health (L’Agence nationale de sécurité sanitaire de l’alimentation, de l’environnement et du travail), or ANSES was created in 2010 with the merger of the French Food Safety Agency (AFSSA) and the French Agency for Environmental and Occupational Health Safety (AFSSET)). This merger means that ANSES presents an interesting cross-cutting approach to health topics, with all types of exposure to potential hazards and risks being considered, whether that exposure comes from work, leisure activities, travel, or even food.
It is always a pleasure to welcome Members of the European Parliament to visit our Bilbao headquarters. On 2 and 3 May, we were delighted to have three MEPs with us for a study visit. Two of them – Edith Bauer (EPP, Slovakia) and Jutta Steinruck (S & D, Germany) were return visitors. For the very first time, they were accompanied by the Chair of the European Parliament’s Employment and Social Affairs Committee, Pervenche (S & D) from France. The study visit was packed with presentations, interspersed with stimulating debate. We took the opportunity to present our flagship projects such as the ESENER survey, the Online Interactive Risk Assessment tool (OiRA), our campaigns and selected projects such as the development of the business case for occupational health and safety and the future of green jobs. In particular, we were delighted to have the opportunity to present them with a first overview of plans for the big Older Workers’ project, which will run for two years and which is included in our work programme exactly because of direct action by the European Parliament to fund a pilot project in this area. We got interesting advice from the MEPs on what they needed in their daily work and we were able to fine-tune some of our plans, particularly in the area of Older Workers, to meet these needs.