THE NEW SIX YEAR PLAN for health and
safety at work has been revealed by the EU Commission. Scheduled to run
until 2012, the strategy aims to reduce accidents at work by 25%. It
intends to bring this about by: improving and simplifying existing
legislation; enhancing its implementation through non-binding measures
such as exchange of good practice, awareness-raising campaigns and
better information and training; defining and implementing national
strategies adjusted for each Member State; mainstreaming health and
safety in other policy areas (education, public health, research) and
by improving the identification of new risks through more research. The
Commission pats itself on the back for a 17% fall in fatal accidents
between 2002 and 2004 but admits that progress is very uneven. 82% of
all occupational injuries and 90% of all fatal accidents occur in small
or medium sized businesses (SMEs); construction, transport, agriculture
and health are sectors where risks are higher and young, migrant and
older workers are disproportionately affected. While the workers
themselves are estimated to lose about €1 billion a year through loss
of earnings, the EU economy suffers a cost amounting to a 2-3% of Gross
Domestic Product (GDP) as 300,000 employees develop permanent
disabilities after workplace accidents, 350,000 have to change job and
15,000 are lost to the labour force. EU employment commissioner
Vladimír ·pidla underlined these facts, 'Every year there
are 4 million accidents at work which represent enormous economic costs
for the European economy’.
The emphasis on saving costs was one of the aspects of the plan that
was strongly criticised by union bodies. The European Trade Union
Confederation (ETUC) said that the general approach was to ‘view
occupational health primarily as a variable of the productivity and
competitiveness of businesses’. Among other flaws that the
confederation pointed out were the narrow approach to illness caused at
work in focusing on accidents, the failure to mention worker
representation, the underestimation of employer criminality and the
silence on European Directives as a means of enforcement. Overall,
according to the ETUC, the plan represented ‘the poorest strategy in
terms of concrete initiatives proposed since the first Community action
programme adopted in 1978’. TUC head of safety Hugh Robertson agreed:
'The EU has set ambitious targets but … the TUC fails to see how these
modest proposals can possibly have the effect the EU claims’.
Temporary work is bad for you, says German study
TEMPORARY AND AGENCY
WORK, or ‘atypical employment’ as EU bodies tend to call it, has been
continuously expanding in recent years While the UK is home to a large
agency sector, Spain is top of the EU league with about one third of
employees on fixed-term contracts. A recent study compared that country
to Germany where temporary workers represent only 8% of the workforce,
below the EU average of 13%. It investigated the health effects of
temporary employment as compared to a permanent job. While it is
generally acknowledged that moving from unemployment into paid work is
good for self-esteem and well-being, the effect was smaller in those
taking on a fixed term contract. One reason for this was worry over
insecurity which affected 44% of temporary workers compared to 15% of
those in permanent employment. Indeed for Spanish women, who have high
unemployment rates and are frequently employed as temps, there is no
discernible positive health effect when they start such work. In
general fixed-term workers were more likely to die from alcohol- and
smoking-related causes.
Researcher Dr. Veronica Gash said that the findings were valid for any
country where there are numbers of temporary workers. 'Getting a job is
good for your health, but according to our research it's less good for
your health if you have a fixed-term contract’ she said, ‘There may
also be stresses linked to the comparatively poor job quality of some
fixed-term jobs which tend to be relatively low paid’. Up to 40% of the
EU workforce could now be in atypical work arrangements according to
Dr.Gash.
Benchmark book pleads for rising standards
THE NEW EDITION of
the annual ‘benchmarking’ report from the health and safety arm of the
ETUC concentrates on flexicurity, that fashionable combination of
flexibility of labour markets with security for workers. ETUI-REHS has
published ‘Benchmarking Working Europe 2007’ to try to raise standards
by taking the best practice examples in the world of labour and social
affairs. Detailed information about EU macro-economic
developments, wages, social protection, training opportunities, worker
participation, occupational health and safety and information and
consultation enables the authors to conclude that ‘Cutting back on
labour and social standards clearly cannot be a successful strategy to
face up to globalisation’. Instead they recommend an emphasis on job
quality and workers’ involvement in shaping their own future.
