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PAGE EUROPEAN REVIEW
THREE YEARS AGO THE European Union passed a law designed to improve the safety of new consumer products coming on to the European market. The 'Directive on General Product Safety', which came into force on January 15th, extends to all non-food products relevant to consumer health and safety. It also compels manufacturers to inform the European Commission when they learn that one of their products may be dangerous, makes banning the product simpler (see issue 9 page 7 for details of a ban on baby's dummies) and easier, and prevents its export to a non-EU country.
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Co-operation among EU Member States and the candidate countries is beefed up under the new measure and the Rapid Alert System (RAPEX), which warns of dangerous products, improved. The EU can now ban the sale of a product for up to a year (the previous limit was 3 months) and do so on its own initiative without waiting for a request from a national government. The new directive requires that, as a general rule, information gathered on product safety by Member States and the Commission should be made available to the public and here the authorities have already made a start. A new web page on the Consumer Affairs directorate site publishes the 'RAPEX' alerts week by week with descriptions of the product involved, the danger, the action taken by the government of the country notifying the Commission and even a picture. During the week that the European Review accessed the web site Rico soap was banned by Denmark for containing potassium mercuric iodide, a prohibited substance in cosmetic products. Previous weeks' postings included a popcorn machine from Spain that could cause electrocutions and lighters found in Portugal that too closely resembled objects that a child might play with. |
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Rico soap : banned by Denmark |
Web pages mentioned on this page are available at :
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The RAPEX weekly notifications can be accessed from : |
http://europa.eu.int/comm/consumers/cons_safe/ |
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The UCATT home page is at: | |
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The UCATT 'Rights on Site' pages are at: | |
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The T & G web site home page is at: | |
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The T & G accessibility policy can be found at: |
http://www.tgwu.org.uk/Templates/System/Other.asp?NodeID=89781 |
UCATT, the British trade union for construction workers, has revamped its internet site. Health and safety plays a central part in their pages, not surprising in an industry where a thousand workers have been killed during the last decade. From the home page there is access via a navigation bar to 5 main links including 'About Us', 'Rights on Site', 'Join Us' and 'Regional Contacts'. Clicking on 'Rights on Site' gives the user three options: 'Employment Rights', 'Health & Safety' and 'Training'. Each page has detailed information and, because the pages are long, a kind of floating frame to help you navigate.
Health & Safety includes topics such as 'Construction Health and Safety Law', 'UCATT Safety Representatives', 'Occupational Ill Health' and 'Dermatitis'. Employment Rights has information on 'Contract of Employment', 'Right to an itemised pay slip', 'Family Friendly Rights' and 'Redundancy pay'. Other links include news and an online version of the Building Worker magazine. All in all, an attractive and informative site although one or two links didn't work when the European Review tried it out.
THE UK'S TRANSPORT AND GENERAL workers union has launched a revamped web site which is designed to be accessible by everyone regardless of computer- literacy or disability. It has been approved by the Royal National Institute for Blind People as well as the Web Accessibility Initiative. It includes a text only version, a strong structure and works with most browsers including those that speak to the user. Henny Swan of the, RNIB said 'An accessible website is highly beneficial not only for people with disabilities but for everyone'.
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