Brussels, 26/03/2002 (Agence Europe) - Last Friday, the European Commission adopted the Communication presented by Anna Diamantopoulou at the Employment Council on 7 March on the theme of "Adapting to changes at Work and in Society": a New Community Strategy for Health and Safety 2002-2006". Its objective is to modernise health and safety in the workplace rules and policy, such as stress-related conditions, bullying and violence in the workplace.
This strategy covers three new areas: 1) It adopts a global approach to well-being at work, taking into account of changes in the world of work and the emergence of new risks, especially of a psycho-social nature and aims to improve the quality of work. For instance, the European Commission will table a proposal on bullying and violence in the workplace, and will consult the social partners on the issue of stress-related conditions; 2) It will use available policy instruments (legislation, social dialogue, benchmarking and best practices, corporate social responsibility and economic incentives) and will develop active partnerships between all the players in health and safety; 3) It points to the fact that the "non social policy" entails costs which weigh heavily on economies and societies, as demonstrated by the toll of accidents and diseases on families and insurers. This strategy therefore aims to consolidate a culture o risk prevention and strengthening the achievements already made, through amore effective enforcement of standards and rules and through improved education and training.
Health and safety are essential elements that determine the quality of work and help to contribute to attaining the Lisbon Objective: more and better quality jobs, as the Commission points out in its introduction, underlining the positive results of EU legislation - accidents in the workplace falling for every 100,000 people in work by 10% between 1994-1998. Nevertheless, absolute figures remain high, with about 5,500 deaths and 4.8 million accidents resulting in three days or more off work. (Eurostat figures for 1998). The Commission indicates that there has been a disturbing rise in the number of accidents in certain Member States and specific sectors since 1999 and that candidate countries have an average frequency of occupational accidents which is well above the EU average because of their higher degree of specialisation in sectors which are traditionally regarded as high-risk.