EHJ, June 2002, pages 188-189 Tina Garrity looks at the new strategy to promote physical, moral and social wellbeing in the workplace

Community health and safety policy must become broader than being primarily a standards-based approach, to becoming one, which uses a multiplicity of tools to promote wellbeing at work. This is the key message of the commission's new strategy on health and safety at work for the period 2002 - 2006.

The concept of wellbeing is taken to mean physical, moral and social wellbeing and not just something that can be measured by the absence of accidents or occupational illnesses. Coming on top of the recognition given to environment and health in the sixth environmental action programme, it seems as if the values which the environmental health profession has sought to promote for so long may finally be finding some resonance in Brussels.

NEW SOCIAL AGENDA
At their meeting in Lisbon in March 2000, the Council of Ministers declared that the long-term goal of the European Union should be to become "the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world, capable of sustained growth with more and better jobs and greater social cohesion".

A key step towards achieving this goal was taken at the Nice council meeting in December 2000, when ministers adopted a new social agenda which builds upon the values of solidarity and justice enshrined in the 1989 charter of fundamental social rights of workers. This new social agenda outlines the key areas upon which the member states feel European social policy should focus in the coming years, namely:

• more and better jobs;
• anticipating and capitalising on change in the working environment by creating a new balance between flexibility and security;
• fighting poverty and all forms of exclusion and discrimination in order to promote social integration;
• modernising social protection;
• promoting gender equality; and
• strengthening the social policy aspects of enlargement and the EU's external relations.

A coherent and effective policy on health and safety is seen as playing a key role in this process.

CORE ISSUES OF FUTURE POLICY
Among the key issues identified by the Commission, which health and safety policy-makers will have to face in future years, is the growing percentage of women and older people in employment. Although the vast majority of women are employed in services and thus are less prone to accidents and occupational illnesses than men, according to the Commission's communication on the strategy, there are a number of risks to which women are particularly liable.

Any measures proposed must be based on research covering ergonomic aspects, workplace design, and the effects of exposure to physical, chemical and biological agents. They must also pay heed to the physiological and psychological differences in the way work is organised.

With regard to the ageing population, the picture is less clear. While the over 55 age group tends to suffer the most serious accidents and is the group with the greatest incidence of long-term occupational illness, the figures depend very much on the nature of the jobs occupied. Older workers tend to be less qualified and are over represented in manual industry. EU policy needs to pay attention to the specific situation of the generations and the age groups in the workplace, says the Commission.

Policy makers will also need to take account of the trend towards more flexible employment, for example, part-time or temporary work. Problems here can result from lack of proper training, psychosomatic problems caused by shift work or night work, a lack of awareness on the part of company managers, or a lack of motivation in the case of workers in an insecure working relationship. Further attention will also need to be paid to the growing incidence of social illnesses such as stress, depression and anxiety at work. These, along with violence at work, harassment and risks related to dependence on alcohol, drugs and medicine should all be the subject of specific measures, says the strategy.

As regards occupational illnesses, the strategy requires that priority should go to illnesses due to asbestos, hearing loss and musculo-skeletal problems. On the issue of SMEs and very small businesses, these, as well as self-employed workers and unpaid family helpers, should all be the subject of specific measures in terms of information, awareness and risk prevention programmes.

TOOLS FOR EFFECTING CHANGE
The strategy looks at a number of tools for tackling the issues identified. It states that education about health and safety needs to be part and parcel of the school curriculum, and it calls for a commitment to ongoing vocational training which must be dispensed regularly and be geared to the realities of day-to-day work, with a view to impacting directly on the work environment. Teaching must be targeted to national, regional, local and sectoral specificity and sensitivities.

Information gathering is vital if we are to anticipate new and emerging risks, it says. Researchers must adopt a consistent approach. Research organisations should co-ordinate their respective programmes, target them to address practical problems arising at the workplace, and make preparations for the research findings to be transferred to firms, and especially to SMEs. The European Health and Safety Agency for its part will set up a "risk observatory", based on examples of good practice collected from firms or specific branches of activity and will organise exchanges of experience and information by way of the systematic collection of data, with the support of Eurostat.

Better application of existing law will be encouraged via the production of guides on how to apply the directives. Practical problems will be identified and legal provisions will be improved to make them more readily comprehensible and more consistent. Gaps in the existing framework will be filled. The Senior Labour Inspectors Committee will encourage exchanges of information and experience and organise mutual co-operation and assistance. Labour inspection activities must be capable of appraising all the risks, particularly in those sectors where they tend to be complex and cumulative, says the strategy.

The inspectorate services must combine their inspection role with a prevention function vis-ˆ-vis firms and workers. They must, in turn, be open to audit, using result and quality indicators to promote innovative approaches. Companies must also play their part and for those who fail to comply there must be uniform sanctions which are dissuasive, proportionate and effectively applied.

OTHER APPROACHES
In addition to promoting the traditional tools for effecting change, the strategy will seek to explore measures such as economic incentives, the potential for including health and safety considerations in the corporate social responsibility initiatives currently underway, and benchmarking and identifying best practice as part of the overall EU employment strategy.

Quantified national objectives to reduce the number of accidents and cases of occupational illness should be adopted, it says. At an institutional level there should be stronger links between the new community strategy on health and safety and the community's strategy on public health, by way of closer co-operation. Experience gained on how to prevent the major public health scourges should be built in to preventive measures at the workplace. On the other side of the coin, health at work should be recognised as an important determinant of the population's general state of health.

COM (2002) 118 final. Communication from the Commission
- Adapting to change in work and society: a new Community strategy on health and safety at work 2002 - 2006.
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2002/com2002_0118en01.pdf