From 27 to 29 September 2017 took place in Lisbon, Portugal, a seminar about “Healthy jobs for everyone”, organized by CIFOTIE (Centro Internacional de Formação dos Trabalhadores da Indústria e Energia), with the support of EZA and of the European Union.
The discussion on " Healthy jobs for everyone " has to be based on the attitudes of all labor actors and not just on compliance with legislation.
The constant changes in the labor market of the European Union oblige all actors to take actions such as:
- Create regional forums - Establish partnerships with local authorities, representatives of the sectors with the highest accident rate;
- Design and implement a strategy to publicize the campaign in the media and on the Internet;
- Carrying out awareness, information and training;
- Verification of the integration of good practices.
In the discussion of this seminar, it was verified that the result of good working conditions promotes the quality of workers' lives and the competitiveness of companies, with a particular focus on prevention, consultation and active participation of workers in improving work organization, adopting measures to improve work wellbeing, adapting work to the individual and ensuring compatibility with family life, and contributing to the physical and mental health of workers.
In conclusion, there is still much that needs to be done, with all workers, representatives of the social partners and institutional partners having to take part as final notes:
- Contribute to the reduction of work accidents;
- Promote, disseminate and make available methods of:
- conducting labor accident surveys;
- data collection and processing of information (in particular for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises);
- Improve information on professional risks to be made available to companies and their employees;
- Promote the involvement of workers and their representatives in the analysis of TA;
- Typify the TAs and disseminate them as a prevention methodology;
- Disseminate methodologies for calculating costs of work accidents;
- Disseminate good practice in the prevention of occupational risks;
- Promote the training of social and institutional actors on the prevention of occupational risks.
According to the themes discussed:
a) Health-friendly workplaces for all ages in the European Campaign for 2016-17 was, of course, the relevant and central aspect of this Seminar, which included experts and representatives of the EU-OSHA Governing Body who added great value to this event.
(b) The role of the Social Partners and, above all, the importance of employers in taking on the good practices that the Campaign outlines and addresses was the key note in which everyone agreed and called for greater commitment through the training of employers, which is still a long way off objectives.
c) EU-OSHA should continue beyond the current Campaign because it is a factor in the control and involvement of all European social partners beyond 2016/17, so the resolution for this Seminar was the recommendation for the European Commission to continue to accompany this work now begun.
d) The Social Partners unanimously recognized the interest of this campaign and the partnership work that still has to be done in order to create the same social conditions for all and for all ages, which in fact has been abundantly proven to not yet exist.
e) We highlight the active participation from the opening to the closing of this Seminar of the EU Coordinating Chair of EU-OSHA, Dr. Emília Telo, who made the opening, participated in the conducting panel of the Seminar and made the closure and conclusions of the Seminar, leading to EU-OSHA a valuable contribution from the Social Partners in the Energy Sector.
f) The two other members of the EU-OSHA Board of Directors, representing Employers and Workers, also participated, which greatly enriched this Seminar, bringing them the precious contributions to the Campaign by associating it with a very specific area electricity and energy where the same in technological terms had a lack of information and participation, it was unanimously recognized the interest and participation of this important technological and socio-economic area.
At the end of the discussions, all the participants were convinced of the great things that still have to be done, but also they were able to gather a great training experience to practice in their institutions.
The quality and representativeness of the participants and speakers representing the large companies in Portugal such as the largest Portuguese Company EDP-Electricidade de Portugal, the Commission for Equality in Work and Employment, the Portuguese Association for Health and Hygiene and Safety at Work and Development and International Cooperation, and the Authority for Working Conditions in Portugal, attest to the high quality of all this event.
EU-OSHA of Portugal inserted in its site the event giving great prominence to the interest of the participating entities, namely of the Companies that have associated with it.
As a corollary of this Seminar, CIFOTIE was invited by EU-OSHA Portugal to participate and intervene in the Seminar to close the Campaign, which will take place in Coimbra on 31 October 2017.