Brussels, 22/11/2005 (Agence Europe) - Meeting with Odile Quintin, the director-general of the Employment/Social Affairs/Equality of Opportunity DG at the Commission in Brussels on 21 November, the social partners EFFAT (for the Unions) and GEOPA-COPA (representing Employers) signed an agreement on “reducing worker exposure to the risks of work-related muscular skeletal disorders (MSD) in the agriculture industry”. The aims of this framework for action, negotiated after Commission consultation of the social partners, are the promotion of best practice and of national risk prevention policies. MSDs are among Europe's major work-related health problems. This is the third agreement signed by agriculture sector social partners: the first, on “recommendations for improving salaried employment in agriculture in Europe”, was signed in 1997, and the second, in 2002, was on “vocational training and life-long learning”.
Monday's agreement aims to propose initiatives to community authorities and the social partners with a view to improving knowledge of work-related MSDs in the agriculture industry and to make proposals for the sector. The signatories of the agreement are calling on social partners in Member States to set up national health and safety observatories for agricultural workers and also a European observatory. To promote risk prevention, the signatories propose that national authorities be set up to define and coordinate MSD prevention policies, national training and awareness-raising programmes, risk assessment for health and safety at work and the implementation of best practice.
At the signing ceremony, meeting chairman Bob Friddaman (Employers, UK) was delighted that “after six months of intense discussions, the social partners in the agriculture sector had reached an agreement. This is a very big step for the agricultural world”. Bernard Levacher (Employers, France) said that the social partners would be asking the Commission “to develop a common statistical framework and to help them financially and technically to set up a European observatory”. M. Holm, representing the Unions (EFFAT), welcomed this genuine agreement as “a tool which will allow us to reduce the impact of these disorders in the agricultural world”. It hadn't been easily reached because, among other things, data from Member States in this area were difficult to compare, he added. After Arnd Spahn (EFFAT) had spoken about the list of best practice and the state of progress reached in the reflections of the various secretariats, Odile Quintin, speaking as the current Director General for Social Affairs (before she becomes Director General for Education), stressed that “social debate is an extremely important element in European governance” and that “debate within the sector is extremely important to show that we can go forward together”. The agreement reached was “an important commitment demonstrating the desire to ensure a safe environment for agricultural workers to reinforce the attractiveness and competitiveness of the sector” said Mme Quintin. MSDs cost between 0.5% and around 2% of GDP, Mme Quintin said, pointing out that Eurostat estimates that 350 worker days are lost every year because of these disorders. The agricultural sector is the one most affected with a 57% increase in complaints relating to these disorders over the last 5 years, said Mme Quintin, and for this reason the Commission began the consultation process with the social partners. The Commission will continue with the second phase of consultation with a view to the possible drawing up of a draft directive, she concluded.