Kelly Rose
Editor

Working better together

Christa Sedlatschek, director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, explains how its latest Healthy Workplaces campaign – Working together for risk prevention - can not only help to improve occupational safe

Christa Sedlatschek, director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work, explains how its latest Healthy Workplaces campaign - Working together for risk prevention - can not only help to improve occupational safety and health but can make businesses more competitive

The world's biggest occupational safety and health campaign is back, with a new focus. The Healthy Workplaces Campaign for 2012- 13, entitled 'Working together for risk prevention', is about helping businesses, workers and their representatives to cooperate, to manage the risks that Europe's workers are facing.

Despite the progress made in occupational safety and health (OSH) in the last few years, European workers are still dying needlessly, and in their thousands. Every year in the EU, over five and a half thousand people die as a result of workplace accidents. Many thousands more die from occupational diseases: the equivalent of one every three and a half minutes.

These deaths are only part of the story: millions more European workers are having to live with the effects of workplace accidents, or long-term damage to their health caused by their work. We can try to calculate the economic impact that all this represents - we think workplace accidents and ill health are costing the EU as a whole around 4% of total GDP, or 490 billion Euros every year. But that isn't taking account of the human cost, which we can't put a figure on. What we do know is that most of these accidents and cases of ill-health can be prevented.

Risk prevention is central to the approach that we take, in Europe, to keeping workers safe and healthy. Look at European legislation on OSH and you'll see the importance of risk prevention, and the obligations that employers have to carry it out, emphasised again and again.

But it's not enough just to pass laws telling people what they need to do. We need to make employers and employees more aware of their responsibilities, and to understand that risk prevention is done best when we work together. That's why the new campaign focuses on risk prevention, and the benefits of cooperation in carrying it out.

Engaging workers European law makes managers and the organisations they lead primarily responsible for keeping workers safe.

Good leadership in this area is vitally important. But we also know that risk prevention works best when managers engage their workforces in the process.

Workers often have the best understanding of their workplaces, the possible risks involved in working in them, and generally will implement any changes that need to be made.

Our research shows that whatever an organisation's size, leadership and the active participation of workers are crucial to successful health and safety management. Our own European Enterprise Survey on New and Emerging Risks (ESENER) involved interviewing some 36,000 managers and worker representatives, and it gives us a picture of how health and safety is currently being managed in European workplaces (www.esener.eu). ESENER shows that enterprises where there is good commitment on OSH from management, and high levels of worker participation, are more likely to have proper health and safety policies in place - up to ten times more likely.

We work much better when we work together.

The construction of the Olympic Park and Stadium for the London 2012 Olympics is an example of how things can go well when employers and employees co-operate on OSH. At the time this was the largest infrastructure construction project in Europe, involving some 36,000 employees, and with contractors ranging from big multinationals to small SMEs.

But throughout the project there was a real emphasis on worker engagement and feedback. This is the first Olympics in which the construction of the Olympic stadium has seen no fatalities. And overall, accident rates were broadly the same as those in all United Kingdom sectors, not just in construction.

A wise investment Our Healthy Workplaces Campaign (launched in April) is focusing on encouraging bosses and top managers to show leadership in engaging in risk reduction, and encouraging workers and their representatives to work together with managers to reduce risks.

In these difficult economic times, it sends a strong message to organisations about the value of putting time and resources into risk prevention. The evidence is clear: investment in OSH pays off. László Andor, European Commissioner responsible for employment, social affairs and inclusion, said at a recent presidency conference on health and safety in Copenhagen that "investing in OSH contributes to company performance, improves staff well-being, reduces absenteeism and staff turnover, and brings greater job satisfaction. There is no doubt that a good working environment is a big factor in competitiveness and can play a crucial role in increasing the workforce's potential. This policy area should therefore be seen as contributing significantly to achieving the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy, helping to foster smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and in particular to raise the employment rate from the current 69% to at least 75%".

For more information about the campaign, visit www.healthyworkplaces.

eu.
Working better together
Working better together
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European Agency For Safety & Health At Work (EU-OSHA)

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Spain
E-48009
SPAIN

0034 94 479 3552

news@osha.europa.eu

www.osha.europa.eu

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