The State of Occupational Health in Community Europe: From Top-Down Reform to a Renewal of Trade Union Action?

Abstract

Working conditions in Europe are getting worse, due to changes in work organization, including intensification and increasing insecurity. A critical assessment of the state of prevention in Europe remains essential. Trade union organizations on the Luxembourg Advisory Committee on Safety, Hygiene and Health Protection at Work drafted a document on what Community occupational health policy should seek to achieve. In June 2001, the ETUC Executive Committee adopted a resolution based on the document. This article discusses the trade union strategy. The first step is to critique the few existing indicators. To a considerable extent, they actually conceal the health problems of work. The statistics on occupational disease reflect, above all, characteristics of the various national systems of benefits but say little about the real state of workers' health.

“Traditional” risks still cause tens of thousands of deaths and injuries every year. Risks associated with work organization are increasing steadily. The intensification of work is an important aspect of the reorganization of production processes and is associated with major changes in work management and organization. At the same time, the spread of Taylorized work procedures in certain sectors (probably correlating strongly with work performed by women in both services and some branches of industry) and the introduction of management methods may be summarized in the phrase “controlled autonomy.” It involves shifting some of the supervisory burden to the level of the team, which destroys collective solidarity and detracts from the conditions under which work can contribute to mental health. Labor insecurity has been facilitated by the reappearance of mass unemployment and technological changes. Work has become increasingly less “sustainable” and companies are swamping society with the real social costs of their appetite for profit.

In seeking harmonization, we must ensure consistent legislation based on the fundamental principles of the Framework Directive. Thus, trade unions demand that all risk factors be covered by directives based on effective preventive approaches. The new language of risk assessment and broadened approach to occupational health may initiate a process that (i) makes the invisible visible; (ii) moves on from observing individual complaints to collective analysis; and (iii) formulates a collective strategy based on identifying what “can be tolerated no longer.”