Working Environment in the New Member States

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Working Environment in the New Member States

• Seminar 3 Part 1

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Health and Safety in European law

• Article 118A of the Treaty of Rome (incorporated
  as Article 137 of the Amsterdam -Treaty- the
  Commission with the Member States will develop
  clearly defined policy on prevention of
  occupational accidents and diseases.
• An issue of quality of life, of efficiency and
  productivity and also the prevention of
  distortion of competition. Costs of accidents and
  ill-health arising from work estimated between
  2.8 and 3.6 of member states GDP.

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Key Directives and measures

• Key instrument Framework Directive 89/391/EEC
  which contains basic provisions regarding the
  organisation of health and safety at work and the
  responsibilities of employers and workers.
  Subsequent legislation protects workers form
  risks related to exposure to chemical, physical
  and biological agents at work with specific
  directives on harmful substances such as
  asbestos.
• Directive on the organisation of working time
  (93/104/EC), plus further Working conditions
  measures regarding protection of pregnant women,
  young people at work and the posting of workers.

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Fatalities at Work 2001-2002
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Workplace Fatal Accidents
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• Fatal and Heavy Injuries Lithuania,1997-2003

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Fatal Accidents, Latvia 1997-2001
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In Latvia in 2003, the highest number of
accidents at work by sector occurred in
wood-pulp, timber and cork production (16 of all
accidents), construction (10.9) and food and
beverage production (10). The most dangerous
occupations in Latvia in 2003 were wood-pulp
processing and paper production equipment
operators (111 accidents), builders (77),
industrial and other workers (73), timber workers
and furniture makers (70), transport drivers
(67), mechanics and locksmiths (60), transport
workers and loaders (46), and electro-mechanical
and electronic installation mechanics and fitters
(43).
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Fatal and All reported Injuries Estonia,1997-2002
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First Survey of Working Environment in the
Accession and Candidate Countries

• European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
  and Working Conditions (2002)

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Health affected by work Q31c1 No, it does not
affect my health
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Different ways health is affectedQ31c 2-7
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Different ways health is affectedQ31c 8-12
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Different ways health is affectedQ31c 13-17
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Different ways health is affectedQ31c 18-20
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European Foundation for the Improvement of Living
and Working Conditions Survey of Working
Conditions (2002)

• Workers more in Accession States more exposed to
  vibrations, noise, heat, air pollution, and, to a
  lesser degree, to working in painful or tiring
  positions, than in the EU
• Working hours are considerably longer than in the
  EU
• Atypical forms of work such as night work or
  shift work are more widespread.

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Working Conditions Survey

• Information/consultation less well developed in
  the acceding and candidate countries than in the
  EU, especially regarding organisational changes
• 40 report in ACC that their work negatively
  affects their health or safety (compared to 27
  in existing EU states)
• Estonia at 77.9, Lithuania at 76.0 and Latvia
  at 78.4 score highest when it comes to
  disagreeing with the statement that work does
  not affect my health, compared to a candidate
  country average of 69.0.

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Work Environment in the Baltic States

• Levels of reported fatigue are significant in all
  three Baltic countries. Lithuanian (45) and
  Estonian employees (46) report harmful fatigue
  levels roughly twice as high as the EU average
  (23).
• Work-related skin, vision, sleep and allergy
  problems, Estonia comes highest for the CEE
  countries, again followed by Lithuania.

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• Reported work-related anxiety, Estonia (19.4) is
  to of the score followed by Latvia (12.3) and
  Lithuania (12.2), (again roughly comparable to
  Bulgaria at 13.3) compared to the average
  reported level of 4.5 for the Candidate
  Countries as a whole.
• Reported trauma (emotional distress) resulting
  from workplace abuse, Baltic States register
  three to nearly five times average levels (2.2)
  for the Candidate Countries, with Estonia at
  6.6, Lithuania at 10.5 and Latvia at 9.3 of
  respondents (European Foundation, 2002).

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J. Antila and P. Ylostalo Working Life Barometer
in the Baltic Countries 2002
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Findings

• In all the Baltic countries, a little under half
  the wage earners would like to agree on work
  safety and health issues within the workplace,
  together with co-workers.
• some degree of support for centralised,
  national-level union agreements
• workforce support for more active effort by the
  trade unions in this respect.

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Findings

• Work intensity is felt to be too high by a
  significant percentage of employees (33-43)
• Mental stress at work is increasing among
  employees (40-48)
• Physical stress at work is increasing among
  employees (37-40)
• Three quarters of employees felt safety had not
  improved
• Significant inter-country and inter-sectoral
  differences in of employees who felt they could
  complain about working conditions

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The business case for safety and health Good
health and safety good business?

• An unproven and inapplicable theorem in the
  context of new member states
• Marginal costs of substitution (recruitment,
  training and discipline costs of new workforce)
  outweigh the benefits for the individual
  enterprise (low costs of replacement of injured
  or ill workers)
• Enterprises able to externalise costs of worker
  ill-health and injury to national social
  insurance systems (no realistic charges for
  rehabilitation services by national health
  systems)
• Enterprises able to externalise costs of worker
  ill-health and injury to individual workers and
  their families (no developed system of personal
  injury litigation)
• Insurance premiums not related to company record
  on safety and health, and implementation of
  advanced occupational health and safety
  management programmes
• Financial sanctions for safety and health
  regulation violations are insufficiently large to
  impact of enterprise profitability
• Low reputational costs for business - no naming
  and shaming of offenders, transparency through
  social and environmental auditing (CSR), ongoing
  scrutiny by civil society actors (eg trade
  unions, health and safety campaign organisations,
  environmental NGOs)
• No criminalisation of corporate body and/or
  possible custodial sentencing of individual
  company officers under corporate killing
  legislation

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Agreement and conflict about safety and health at
work

• In the new member accession states many employers
  do not feel good health and safety is
  necessarily good business
• Safety and health are not necessarily issues of
  adversarial conflict, as betweeen management and
  labour
• But we cannot assume agreement tension between
  safety and profits