Social Standards

Topics | Industrial Safety and Health Protection

“It has to be secured that the working conditions live up to the demands with regard to industrial safety both as regard the physical as well as the psychological aspects. They should provide for continuous participation in working life. Possible indicators for risk or stress exposure at the place of work are the number of industrial accidents and the connected cost as well as the rate of occupational disease”[1]

We have asked the trade unions how industrial safety is being observed at the company. Here, too, we would like to point out that we asked for the subjective opinion.

Provisions for industrial safety and health protection is …

	very good	good	satisfactory	not so good
Belgium
Estonia
Finland
Italy
Lithuania
Netherlands
Austria
Slovakia
Czechia

The survey reflects that the trade unions assess the organisation of industrial safety and health protection as positive, all in all. However, agriculture still belongs to the industries with the highest number of accidents, often with a fatal outcome. That is why the trade unions are not letting up in their effort for better prevention.

With the growing migratory movements on the labour market, cross-border activities of the people involved in industrial safety and health protection are becoming necessary. The German union IG BAU, the Czech OSPZV/ASO and the Polish ZZPR can look back on numerous activities.

A joint agreement of the trade union chairmen and many cross-border workshops bears witness to an active work of the partners.

Representatives of Czech, Polish, German and European trade unions signing the agreement "Agricultural Trade Unions from the Czech Republic, Poland and Germany Together for Social Standards in Agriculture"

The trade unions are supported in their efforts for better industrial safety by the accident insurance organisations. The German trade associations have done excellent work for cross-border industrial safety. There is a lot of help for employers and employees, in the form of information and hints, on the website of the agricultural social insurance: www.lsv.de

• [1] European Commission, Directorate-General for Employment and Social Affairs, Employment in Europe 2002 – Recent Trends and Prospects, Luxemburg, 2002, p.80.