OSH Blog
The aim of this blog is to bring you news about developments in occupational safety and health across the EU and beyond, and also about EU-OSHA initiatives and activities to fulfill our mission.
We are one of the smallest EU agencies and cannot promise to reply to every comment, but we will read them and bear them in mind to shape our future work.
Young people - our future!
We all know that, but more thoughts are with them on International Youth Day - 12 August. How can we protect our young workers? Support them when it is needed? And the most relevant - how can we equip them with knowledge, skills and abilities to appreciate important values such as their health and safety?
EU-OSHA - supporting Hungarian Social Dialogue
EU-OSHA is a tripartite organisation, and as such recognises the importance of social dialogue at European, national, and workplace levels. In July 2010, the Hungarian ICT Social Dialogue Committee visited the Agency in a trip coordinated by the Hungarian workers' representative on the Governing Board of EU-OSHA, Károly György.
Agency hosts high-level visit of US-OSHA
The United States' Occupational Safety and Health Administration (US-OSHA) made a high-level visit to the Agency in July 2010 in advance of the EU-US conference in Boston later in the year. US-OSHA, part of the United States Department of Labor, was created in 1970 to ensure safe and healthful working conditions for working men and women by setting and enforcing standards and by providing training, outreach, education and assistance.
EU-OSHA starts building links with India
The European Agency for Safety and Health at Work has a significant role in the building of links to improve worker safety not only in Europe but also around the world. While the main focus of Agency activities is with the Member States, contacts with non-European organisations is important for the sharing of knowledge and solutions in occupational safety and health.
Focal points convene in Barcelona
The focal points, EU-OSHA’s primary contacts in the Member States, met in Barcelona in a parallel session of the Spanish Presidency Conference on the Community Strategy. The meeting was focused on the launch of the first ESENER survey results (http://ESENER.EU) and how the key messages of the survey could be disseminated into the Member States.
Would you like to contribute to future health and safety in ‘green jobs’?
Working environments are continuously changing with the introduction of new technologies, substances and work processes, changes in the structure of the workforce and the labour market, and new forms of employment and work organisation. New work situations bring new risks and challenges for workers and employers, which in turn demand political, administrative, technical and regulatory approaches to ensure high levels of safety and health at work.
How do European enterprises manage OSH?
Would you like to know more about how occupational safety and health (OSH) is managed in your country’s workplaces – and across the whole of the EU, and beyond? Do you know the reasons for companies to take prevention seriously – or what stops them from doing so? And how are workers’ representatives involved in OSH management?
Stop the tobacco smoke, brighten your smile and make others smile
Today is World No Tobacco Day. Everyone knows, tobacco smoke exposure is unhealthy and can cause death and serious diseases. However thousands of workers are still exposed to tobacco smoke at their workplace and an estimated number of 7000 workers die each year in the European Union because of this. These are alarming numbers and everyone should feel encouraged to take action against this issue!
Europe Day
9th May is Europe Day - an annual celebration of peace and unity in Europe. It is also known as Schuman Day, commemorating the 1950 declaration by French foreign minister Robert Schuman proposing the creation of a supranational European Community.
15th International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers
April 28 is the 15th International Commemoration Day for Dead and Injured Workers with the theme unions make work safer. The day is used to remember those who died as a result of work around the world and to campaign for better working conditions. If, according to the former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan, "safety and health at work is not only sound economic policy, it is a basic human right", then many men and women are having their fundamental rights denied.
Governing the Agency: tripartism at work
Around this time each year, our Governing Board meets in Bilbao to review and give its opinion on the results achieved in the previous year, and to discuss and agree the main lines of the Agency’s work programme for the following year.
A visit from our Swedish partners
Last Thursday I was delighted to welcome a delegation from the Swedish Work Environment Authority (SWEA), led by its Director-General, Mr Mikael Sjöberg. We had an opportunity to learn about the excellent work being done at the SWEA, and to present to them some of the work we have planned for 2010.
How do you run the world’s largest campaign on safety and health at work?
How do you coordinate the world's largest occupational safety and health campaign? By getting key players together, which is what EU-OSHA did on 10-11 February 2010.
Labour is not a commodity
When we think of poverty, normally we associate it with developing countries and with a lack of things like food or clean water. Europe, however, is also affected by poverty.
Basic Human Right?
“Safety and Health at work is not only sound economic policy, it is a basic human right.” Kofi Annan, previous Secretary-General of the United Nations. Further quotes on occupational safety and health by Kofi Annan also in the African Newsletter.
Travelling is enriching!
Travelling is enriching! In recent weeks, I have had a fair amount of contacts and missions in Europe and here’s a round-up of some interesting discoveries...
New facts and figures
In my earlier blog “Latest news on the global and European burden of disease and injury at work” I had estimated that there could be some 18.7 million people suffering from health problems in the EU27. This was derived from my extrapolation based on the self-reported illness surveys in Finland and UK. This is also a reply to Steve’s question on European statistics.
Opinion, Plato once said, is the medium between knowledge and ignorance.
It’s a few days since we launched the results of our first pan-European opinion poll of attitudes to occupational safety and health (OSH). And judging from the response we’ve had, we were not the only ones with an interest in knowing what people in the street think about OSH and its role in their lives.
Read the blog in any language
We have added a new service: the Google translation, which allows you to read the blog, in any language.
Latest news on the global and European burden of disease and injury at work
Next year we’ll be starting a project to collect and analyse the methodologies used to obtain estimations on the occupational burden of disease. The best European experts, as well as ILO and WHO, will advise us on the issue. A couple of months ago we also posted the latest numbers published in the Journal of Safety Research and based on the ILO study initiated by me while I was still at the ILO in Geneva.
