Stop Death, Disease and Illness at work

(2 December 2014 - ETUC Press Release) The EU must take action to stop the 100,000 deaths a year caused by occupational cancers.

The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) meeting in Brussels today condemned the European Commission for blocking health and safety improvements(*) and for putting forward an extremely weak health and safety strategy (‘Framework Strategy 2014-2020’).

The ETUC called today for
- Legally enforceable exposure limits for 50 of the most cancer-causing chemicals and substances toxic for reproduction;
- A Directive on musculoskeletal disorders to prevent back injuries and other illnesses caused by heavy lifting or muscular strain;
- Action to require employers to assess and prevent psychosocial risks at work such as stress which 25% of workers experience.

Far from taking action to protect citizens from danger at work, the European Commission has

- blocked the revision of the Directive on Carcinogens or Mutagens at Work, with the result that only 3 cancer inducing chemicals have European exposure limits;
- blocked an agreement between employers and employees to protect hairdressers from harmful chemicals from becoming law;
- held back a Directive, which has been drafted, on back injuries and other musculoskeletal disorders.

Bernadette Ségol, General Secretary of the ETUC said “It is a scandal that 100,000 people die every year in the EU from occupational cancers, and an outrage that the Barroso Commission refused to pass any new health and safety law. I invite the new Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and Commissioner Marianne Thyssen to take action to protect European citizens from death, disease and illness at work.”

EPSU General Secretary, Jan Willem Goudriaan, took part in the action pictures.


(*)Done through its ‘regulatory fitness’ programme and using the evaluation of the implementation of existing directives as a pretext