Brussels, 13/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission is finally doing something about exposure to cancer-causing chemicals in the workplace. More than five years after first announcing it, on Friday 13 May, it unveiled a series of upper limits on 13 carcinogens, saying that the move should save 100,000 lives over the next fifty years.
The Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Marianne Thyssen, said this was “a question of life or death, and also of employment and quality of life. There are many complex causes of cancer and the answer should be simple: involving reducing or eliminating the causes of illness.
Rules governing protection for workers in the EU against carcinogens are laid down in the framework directive 89/391/EEC on health and safety at work (HSW) and the directives dealing specifically with chemical risks, particularly the Directive on chemical agent and the directive on carcinogens and mutagens. The latter directive, 2004/37/EC, requires employers to reduce as far as possible the risks to which their workers are exposed. Likewise, it requires the Commission to decide on limits when it has sufficient information.
The new proposal is a first step in this directive that would add new limits or amend existing values from directive 2004/37/EC to reduce exposure to 13 carcinogens. The carcinogens include 'respirable crystalline silica' (RCS), chromium components VI), hardwood dust and hydrazine. The proposed values - inspired by the work of the advisory committee on health and safety at work- define the upper limit for carcinogens in the ambient air in the workplace. The levels are the minimum cap and member states are free to go further.
The Commission says it will not be stopping here and will be publishing some four dozen limits to exposure at work during its term of office, a dozen of them by the end of the year.
Reactions The social partners have reacted in a relatively positive manner to the proposals. The European federation of private employers, BusinessEurope, opposes, however, the limit on exposure to 'respirable crystalline silica' (RCS). According to Rebekah Smith, the main advisor for social affairs at BusinessEurope, this is not a direct carcinogen in that the measures aim to cover the dust generated by procedures in the workplace, such as in the running of mines or quarries. She also criticises the action modes selected by the commission as being out of line with the principle of smart regulation and arguing that the two proposals should be examined by the Council and Parliament at the same time, fearing that the co-legislators will take advantage of this opportunity to re-examine various measures in directive 2004/37/EC. The European Trade Union Federation talks about a significant step forward after 12 years of inaction. This is simply a step in the right directive, rather than an end result, however, explained Esther Lynch, confederate secretary at the ETUC, saying that upper limits need to be set for at least 70 substances. The ETUC calls on the Commission to extend the scope of directive 2004/37/EC to cover substances that are toxic for reproduction. We understand that this is unlikely to be done because the Commission sees them as two different situations (unlike carcinogens, it is possible to consider an agent that is toxic to reproduction to be inoffensive below a certain threshold). The EPP group coordinator at the EP's employment and social affairs committee, David Casa (Malta), also welcomed the new draft legislation. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)