The European Union launched its new two-year health and safety campaign focusing on risk assessment. The press launch was held at the EU headquarters in Brussels on 13 June. Commissioner Spidla launched the campaign to reduce the estimated €1 billion of lost working time per year in Europe due to preventable work related accidents and illness. The Community Strategy for Health and Safety at Work is to reduce work-related accidents by 25% in the period 2007 to 2012. EU figures show nearly 6,000 people die in the EU as a consequence of work-related accidents, and the International Labour Organisation estimates that an additional 160,000 workers in the EU die every year from occupational diseases. (The UK Hazards campaign data shows that the UK figures underestimate these deaths by a factor of 8!).

Commissioner Spidla also focused on non-fatal accidents and illnesses resulting in lost working days. Jukka Takala (Director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work in Bilbao) highlighted key messages of the campaign: 1) risk assessment is not necessarily complicated; 2) proper risk assessment also brings business benefits; 3) risk assessments must involve the employees doing the job. The agency invited industry and employee representatives to support each of these messages. Jukka Takala illustrated the need for employee involvement in risk assessment using the personal case of RSI Action chairman, Stephen Fisher. The absence of any risk assessment in his work as a Principal Engineer in the aerospace industry, resulted in chronic diffuse RSI and medical retirement at the age of 52.

From left to right: Joachim Feldmann, Feldmann and Partner Zahntechnik GmbH (DE); Jukka Takala, Director of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work; Jeroen van de Giessen, Dycore (NL); Vladimír Špidla, Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities; Steve Fisher RSI Action (UK); Romana Tomc, Slovenian State Secretary for Labour, Family and Social Affairs and Joel Blondel, Head of Service at the French General Direction of Labour, representing the French Presidency.

Posted: August 15th, 2008 under Risk Assessment, European Union.
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