(12 July 2016) In June 2016 EPSU became one of about 100 EU-level and national official partners of the current biennial campaign of the European Agency for Safety and Health at Work (EU-OSHA) in Bilbao. We joined the campaign together with HOSPEEM, the EU-level employers’ organisation for the hospital/health care sector, with the ETUC and with a number of other European Trade Union Federations. The campaign aims “to promote sustainable working lives”, as the campaign sub-title phrases it.
Please visit the webpage of the EU OSHA Campaign 2016-2017 "Healthy Workplaces for All Ages" that is available in 25 languages. You can download various campaign materials (guide, leaflet, PPT presentation, etc.) in all languages. The E-Guide is only available in English.
Jan Willem Goudriaan, General Secretary of EPSU, says: “Europe's workforce is ageing and public sector workers are no exception to this general trend. In many health professions e.g. the average age is 45+. In order to create effective recruitment and retention conditions for public administrations, municipalities, the energy, water and waste sectors as well as for health care and social services, increased and sustained efforts are needed to ensure healthy and safe working conditions throughout working life." EPSU's priorities for health and safety are the prevention, reduction and elimination of musculoskeletal disorders, of occupational cancers, of stress at the workplace. "They are part of good working conditions and work places that unions and work place representatives - also in public services - tackle. Workers and employers can and should act together to identify and eradicate the causes of these and other health and safety hazards. This means paying attention to work organisation, to work loads and to an often increasing work intensity. I hope that the EU OSHA 'Healthy Workplaces for All Ages' campaign will be instrumental to make progress.", Jan Willem Goudriaan underlines. EPSU expects the campaign to support awareness raising to improve prevention throughout all ages and workplaces, to help promote social-partner based actions and to stimulate legislative initiatives to improve the health and safety of the workers and users of public services.
EPSU made the following Campaign Pledge: “EPSU supports the EU OSHA’s Campaign “Healthy Workplaces for All Ages”. We will distribute and promote the campaign throughout our activities and including the Sectoral Social Dialogue Committee. We will pay attention to the campaign via our website and in EPSU’s Newsletter. We foresee to organise a seminar dedicated to the campaign topic either in the context of a planned joined project with HOSPEEM or as a thematic seminar in the framework of a regular meeting of the sectoral social dialogue committee in the hospital sector in 2017. The event should help the social partners in the hospital sector to further exchange on good practice in the form of public policies or social partner-based initiatives to prevent, manage and reduce health and safety risks linked to an ageing workforce. EU-OSHA will be invited to play a role in the event. EPSU’s work on healthy workplaces for all ages builds on the ''Joint EPSU-HOSPEEM guidelines and examples of good practice to address the challenges of an ageing workforce in the healthcare sector'' signed in December 2013 (http://www.epsu.org/ru/node/8087). It is further based on the conclusions and recommendations of a joint EPSU-HOSPEEM report on the implementation and use of the EPSU-HOSPEEM “Framework of Actions Recruitment and Retention” (2010) finalised in December 2015 (http://www.epsu.org/article/epsu-hospeem-report-use-and-implementation-framework-actions-recruitment-and-retention) The examples and policy recommendations of a project identifying social partner-based action to address the challenges related to an ageing workforce in health care will feed into the project as well. It involved EPSU affiliates from Germany, The Netherlands, Serbia and the United Kingdom. EPSU will continue to contribute (via the ETUC) to the on-going negotiations between the cross-sectoral social partners’ on an “autonomous framework agreement on active ageing and intergenerational solidarity”.
EPSU did also support the 2014/2015 EU OSHA Campaign "Healthy Workplaces Manage Stress" as campaign partner. In this context the joint HOSPEEM-EPSU conference on preventing, managing and reducing psycho-social risks and stress at the workplace in the hospital sector was organised on 10 November 2015, with the support of Finnish EPSU affiliates.
Please find below the EU-OSHA official letter confirming EPSU partnership
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