1 / 11

Laurent Vogel ETUI February 2013

The role of the social partners in developing and implementing Occupational Health and Safety policies and strategies. Laurent Vogel ETUI February 2013. Health and Safety is never a purely technical question. Huge gap between existing knowledge and practical prevention

fayola
Download Presentation

Laurent Vogel ETUI February 2013

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. The role of the social partners in developing and implementing Occupational Health and Safety policies and strategies Laurent Vogel ETUI February 2013

  2. Health and Safety is never a purely technical question • Huge gap between existing knowledge and practical prevention • Being affected by bad working conditions: a question of social inequality • Collective action of workers: a key element for any OSH strategy

  3. Workers exposed to carcinogens and prevention measures carried out at the workplace (SUMER 2003, France)

  4. Sustainable work? Do you think you will be able to do your current job when you are 60 years old? YES (EWCS)

  5. Evidence on « what works » • Links between Safety reps and an effective OSH policy in companies • Results tend to be mediated by unionization • “Direct consultation is likely to have disappointing results for the individual non-unionized worker” (David Walters)

  6. Data from ESENER suggest • Risk assessment is more likely if there are safety reps, especially in small firms • Combination of high management commitment with worker representation is strongly associated with better management of psychosocial issues • Huge differences between countries, especially in companies from 10 to 249 (companies with less than 10 workers were not covered by the survey

  7. Why safety reps are so important • Autonomy : opposition of social interests mainly when there are long term effects. Creating a counter-power at company level • Promotion of workers self-activities (against imposing prevention from outside) • Importance of workers collective knowledge

  8. Workplace democracy ? Employee representation by country, EWCS 2010, Index

  9. What could be done in the next Strategy • All the workers should have access to safety reps independently from the size of companies or the employment contracts (combine company level safety reps with territorial or site reps) • The percentage of workers covered by safety reps should be considered as an indicator of the OSH structures • Consolidate the links between safety reps, labour inspection and preventive services

  10. A precondition • Avoid the Better Regulation demagogy on SME’s • When it is about OSH issues, SME’s workers should have the same rights, the same level of protection and the same possibilities to intervene

  11. Social dialogue and OSH strategy in the EU • Intersectoral social dialogue • Agreement on stress (2004) • Agreement on violence at work (2007) • Sectoral social dialogue • Rich experience in different sectors • The agreement on needlestick injuries (became a Directive in 2010) • The agreement for hairdressers was signed in 2012 (should become a Directive according to the social partners … but opposition from different member states)

More Related